Lianne's Little Corner

I think we're finally getting used to being in South Florida. It's still not where I'd rather be, but it's not as bad as it seemed when we first got here. Yesterday DD2 was about fed up with having a pool close by, but not being able to go into it. Last week the two girls got up early every day to go help out with VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the church we've started attending here. (A good thing, too, because unknown to us, they have to have accumulated a certain amount of "community service" hours to graduate from high school!) They would get back home in the afternoons just in time...for thunder showers. Can't go in the pool with lightening! So yesterday we went to the pool. Put on our 30 SPF sunscreen...and got our first BURN of the season. I guess the "won't come off in the water" line is just a myth. So today we were going to put on our winter coats and hats to keep from burning more, and go bike riding. (Ok, so I was kidding abou

Well, I hope to be, anyway. :) Although we're not exactly settled in--there are still boxes everywhere--we're in our new place, have the internet set up (finally!) and my kitchen is in order and I'm able to cook in it now. So I figured it was time to get busy online again. This has been quite a move. A huge adjustment, to say the least. And there are plenty more adjustments awaiting us. I still have to get my girls registered in schools down here, and in August I'll be going back to work full time. The first full-time, outside the home job in 15 years. It'll be a HUGE adjustment for my family as well, to not have me at their beck and call at any time. I hope they handle it ok. Ha! I hope I handle it ok. So yesterday we had our first gator sighting. It took longer than I expected. There's a pond/lake (whatever you want to call it...I think it's man-made, whatever it is) behind our apartment. We were told that occasionaly the gators would appear, especially af

I realize I'm late getting this up today, but I don't want the day to go by without posting this. This was written by my pastor and dear friend, Chaplain (col) Larry McCarty, who serves as a chaplain in the US army. I asked his permission to post it here. I cried as I read it, and I wanted to share. So no more from me. Read what Larry had to say. Last week was a good week but a very sad one. President Bush came to (Fort) Bragg for the 82nd Airborne Division Pass and Review. He then participated in the Division Memorial Service. I was able to be at both events. A few images are burned into my mind. On Thursday morning The President reviewed the 15,000 plus troops and then headed back to the podium. Everybody stood up to get a good look. I noticed one little boy who could not see due to the crowd and the fence. As the President passed by I picked the boy up so that he could get a good look. The boy was so appreciative. He gave me a hug and then he said, "Thanks Mister...my d

Someone on my writer's list sent a link to this YouTube video. I was curious and went to watch. What a hoot! I'm not going to spend alot of time writing so you can have plenty of time to watch this. It's one woman's interpretation about the descriptions Solomon gave of his beloved in the Song of Solomon. But no more from me. Watch. :) Have a great day.

I went out this morning to take some pictures of the lovely spring flowers and foliage around here. Who knows when I'll see some REAL spring again. I mean, it'll be eternal summer down in Florida, which will be pretty, I'm sure. But there's something special about those first buds and blooms after a long, hard winter. I wanted it well documented. I even filmed a little, just so I could get the sound of the birds. We're supposed to get thunderstorms this afternoon so I knew I had to get to it right away. Isn't that the way it is with life, though? The trees have been getting prettier and prettier until they went into full bloom in the past couple of days. I kept telling myself I had to get pictures before the blooms all died...or blew or were washed away. There was always tomorrow. Until today. I don't know if the rain and wind really will remove the blooms from the trees, but I didn't want to risk it. As I walked through the park down behind our house, I

On Saturday we saw something I've only ever seen in pictures. A mama duck was crossing the road with her little ducklings all in tow. It was a busy street, where cars zoom by, and poor mama and babies might not have stood a chance. Except there was a sweet man, whose name I don't know, who decided to do something to help. He was in a white van and he pulled his vehicle across two lanes and got out stopping trafic until the ducks had passed. My only regret was that I didn't get the camera out of my purse in time to snap a picture. But it was a cute little procession, and admirable of the man who stopped to help them out. We've been watching alot of the Animal Planet lately, and we see so much ugliness that's done to innocent animals. Sometimes it's just neglect, sometimes the owners are poor or elderly and either can't take care of their pets or just don't realize what's really happening. But then there are cases that just make you want to strangle pe

I had a little digression this week. I apologize. There was just so much going on around here that I didn't get around to posting. But I'm back for today and hope to be back again on Monday. Tomorrow I get to meet up with a bunch of other authors. Woo-hoo! A group of about 10 or so writers in the area are getting together at a restaurant to just chat writing and see what we can do to help each other. I'm really looking forward to it. It's not often I get the chance to meet with other odd balls writers. So I should have plenty to blog about after that. Last night was opening night for my DD1's musical. It's an old musical that was put out in movie form in 1966. We rented the movie, and found it to be rather inappropriate for high school kids to put on. So we went not expecting much, but going to support our daughter. But what fun! We laughed so hard. It's amazing the talent some of these young kids have. I won't be surprised if some day we see some of th

Congratulate me. It's my 18th wedding anniversary! :) Oh, well maybe you should congratulate my DH. Or give him your condolences. Poor guy. He's put up with alot over the years. The move to Florida is 99% a sure thing. I say 99% because the contract hasn't actually been signed, and ya never know what could happen. And you know what? I'm ok with it. I'm glad this whole process is over. Now we begin to think of the transition and moving. Now I find my gypsie blood beginning to stir, anxious to get moving since the decision has been made. So I won't say a whole lot today. I've got work to do around the house and for the new proposal I'm working to get together. Have a great week. I wish you sunshine and blue skies. Especially to Marianne, who's had way too much snow this winter.

Ok, I confess. Nothing mysterious here today, I just thought that title might be a grabber. *G* But I do want to chat about plotting today. For many years I proudly proclaimed myself a SOTP writer. (SOTP = Seat Of The Pants). I would get the germ of a story and sit and write and see where the story and characters would take me. Ah...writing was fun and carefree. I couldn't wait to get back into the story to find out what was going to happen. Odd, maybe, since I was creating it. But that's how it was for me. It was almost like reading a book, except that I didn't even have the option of looking at the end to see what would happen. (No, I don't do that. But with a book it's always an option.) I really miss those days of carefree writing, and I realize back then, my writing was mostly for my own enjoyment. I guess it could almost have been classified as a hobby. I didn't see it that way, but I also didn't know the rules of writing. Now I do. I'm seeking to

I just discovered my new favorite song. It's from Casting Crown's latest CD. I heard it for the first time yesterday when I was going to pick up my daughter from school. At first, I found it pretty. But then I listened more closely to the words and I knew it was for me. The words of that song really convicted me because they describe where I am right now. Somewhere in the Middle. And I want to move beyond the middle to the place God wants me to be. So I'm starting now, giving glory to God for all He has done for me. God is so good. Well duh, you say. Of course He is. :) And I know He is, but sometimes He really goes overboard in showing us His goodness. He has blessed me so much recently, despite my ungratefulness. But yesterday He really came through in a bunch of small ways that, added together, equaled a big way. Funny thing, the song came after everything else. As you know, if you've been reading along for awhile here, right now our future is a little uncertain. Bot

Today I'm going to put my "whining" aside for a bit to rant. Last night as we were flipping back and forth between Dancing with the Stars and American Idol, we saw an advertisement for a news report. Now I didn't actually see this news report, but just the blurb in the advertisement had the hackles up on everyone in my family. Well, except for the dog. But if he'd understood human talk, he would have had his hackles up too. The blurb was about a report of a doctor who claims that lying is a sign of intelligence. Huh??? Granted, as I've already said, I didn't see the actual report so I don't know where this doctor was going with this. But frankly, I don't care. You tell someone that lying shows their intelligence, you're making lying into something good. One doesn't have to believe the Bible, as I do, to know that lying is wrong. Many people think that "a little white lie" doesn't hurt anyone (not me...I don't believe in th

I admit, I'm trying very hard not to be, but I'm sad. I guess my relapse was worse than I thought. Or then I'm having another one today. I was ok about Florida yesterday, but now that it's a reality, I'm not so ok about it. They called yesterday and offered DH the job. On one hand, I'm glad. I would have been very upset if they turned him down after all this. It would have been a real blow to his self esteem had that happened. So this was a good thing. Of course, that put DH in a tailspin. He's still not thrilled with the idea of going to Florida. But in talking through all this, we came to the conclusion that it makes no sense for him to take a job doing something other than what he's sacrificed almost two years of his life to accomplish. We've had a hard two (well, almost 2) years here while he's been doing this chaplain residency. And to do something else, even youth pastoring, would be like throwing it all away. So nothing has been signed yet

Saturday DH got home from Florida. Things went well. He really liked the hospital and the people with whom he interviewed. They didn't offer him the job yet, but he's feeling confident that they probably will. I thought I had accepted Florida. And until yesterday I had. With no really enticing prospects in other places, Florida seemed, well, Ok. But yesterday DH was looking through some other job listings, and found a position for a youth pastor at a church in...**sigh**...Colorado Springs. He sent out his resume right away, and now we sit and wait. With that hope, of course, I find myself all the way back at square one about Florida...absolutely hating the idea of it. It was never my first choice, of course. I loved the idea of Laconia, NH. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. And now I'm feeling very negative about CS, because I really, really want that! I love working with youth, and I loved CS. DH was so sweet. He's so sick of the cold weather, and I can hardly blam

I'm glad it's Friday. I'm exhausted. I was up far longer than I should have been last night, writing. With DH gone, I didn't feel the need to rush to bed once the kids were down. Mistake. I have a doctor's appointment this morning at 9:20. I wasn't worried about staying up late because I thought I could just go back to sleep once the kids left for school. Serves me right for not looking at my appointment card BEFORE I decided to stay up. I thought the appointment was at 2:20 for some reason. Must have gotten it mixed up with my appointment on Tuesday. Ack! So now I'm dragging. But maybe it's a good thing it's early. I can go in and get it over with, THEN come home and go to bed. We had a little excitement yesterday when I took DH to the airport. It was raining and snowing, and then just snowing, and we were afraid his flight might have been canceled. It was. Not because of the weather, I'm not sure why it was cancelled. But the bigger problem was

I am about to run out the door this morning to take DH to pick up a few travel size toiletries, then drop him off at work. This afternoon he's heading down to Florida for a day long (tomorrow) interview with the hospital folk who are looking to hire him. It's not quite official yet, but it's starting to look more and more like Florida will be our next stomping grounds. I'm still for Colorado Springs, but we go where the jobs are. And most importantly, of course, where God leads us. And it seems He's leading us to Florida. He could always close the door. I'm aware of that, but it doesn't look that way. And God has worked in my heart about going to Florida. It's still not my first choice, but I've accepted it, and I'm thinking of all the positives. We'll only be 23 miles or so from Key Largo where we spent our honeymoon. And I absolutely loved it there back then. I wrote yesterday. Over 2000 words. :) I was very happy with myself. But today I n

It's funny how things come about that put our lives into perspective in a whole new way. Well, I can't speak for anyone but myself. I had a busy day on Monday, my first "real" day back after my trip. And if you read my post on Monday, you know I was whining about having to be back to normal. But yesterday I was going through my email and I found one from a lady who has suffered some very real loss recently, and though she's talking about it, she's not whining. The lady is Darlene Franklin, a member of my writer's list, ACFW. She lost a daughter to suicide, and as a means to try to heal, she's blogging about it. So check out her blog in my list of blog links. Post a comment if you have a moment and the inkling to do so. I know it will mean alot to her. Reading of her loss and her grief, and the grace with which she is dealing with it was very humbling to me. I've lost a loved one, my father, when I was sixteen years old. Cancer. But I've never l

Maybe I should have posted this yesterday since it was closer to Sunday, but I really wanted to complain about being home instead. lol. Anyway, I posted back in July about my disappointment with how no one seemed to care about the 4th, and how disgusted I was with the commercialism going on when it should have been a day to celebrate out country's independence. So imagine my shock, surprise, marvel when we went to dinner in a restaurant at the mall and everything was closed! Well, not the restaurant, but the stores were closed. Or most of them, anyway. Barnes and Noble and Sears were open. But nothing else. Even Bennigans was closed, which surprised me since it's a restaurant and almost everyone in town was out for lunch. I know many commercial places close for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I didn't think they still closed for Easter. I was very pleased, to say the least, and filled with hope that not all is lost in America after all. :) That said, while we were eating ou

We're home, now, and trying hard not to be ungrateful. It was a wonderful trip, but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We finished up by going to visit my uncle who lives near Kansas City, MO. It was a nice visit, and he took us into Liberty, MO, to see the first bank that Jesse James and his gang robbed. We didn't take the tour, but we did peek in the window to see what the little room looked like. And I got a couple shots of the girls in front of it. Today we start back into the full swing of things with a VERY busy day. DH has a doctors appointment today at 9 to see an endocrinologist about a possible parathyroid problem that might be causing his kidney stones. Then I get to go for an MRI at 11. Then DH has another doctor's appointment at 2 to see if something other than the possible parathyroid problem is causing the arthrosis in his shoulders and knees. (He's too young to have these kinds of bone problems!) Then at 3:45 DD2 has a dentist appoi

Well, in the car, of course. :) This morning DH woke me up with a surprise. He got up earlier than everyone else, he said, and started to think that if we left Colorado Springs without going up the Peak, we'd regret it for the rest of our lives. To be sure, the prospect of going up the Peak got everyone hopping out of bed in record time. I really thought the climb would be terribly steep. It was a little in some places, but it would level off then climb a bit again. All in all, it wasn't bad at all, and we made it up and back down again in one piece. Obviously, since I'm posting! lol. They only let us go up part of the way today, I guess because higher up the conditions weren't safe. But that's all right. We got to go up about 13 miles, and truly, that was good enough for us. We stopped at a visitor's center at the 13 mile mark and bought a few souvenirs, and got quite a history lesson from the man who was running the shop. Let me tell you, what inspiration for

I don't know if the whole family will agree, but for me, today was by far the best of all our days on this tour. We've seen so many pretty places, and I love them all. I cannot say that what we saw today was the most beautiful, because we've seen such varied terraine. The Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore were absolutely gorgeous, in a much different way than the Rockies. I think what made it so wonderful today was a combination of things. The weather has been wonderful. Absolutely gorgeous skies, as you can see by the pictures, and temps that are almost warm. It's the perfect weather for me to want to get outside and walk or climb rocks. Needless to say, the Garden of the Gods is a remarkably beautiful piece of God's creation. A more appropriate name would be Garden of God. I'm impressed that it's still free admission, and that's a testament to the man who at one time owned it. We walked for quite some time along the trails. We didn't do alot of rock cli

(Don't know how to put captions on these through blogger, so this'll have to serve. This tunnel is the entrance to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, near Denver.) We got to see a little of Denver, today. I wasn't all that impressed. But honestly, I'm never very impressed with big cities. It was ok for a city, but I wasn't sorry to leave it behind and head south to Colorado Springs. But first, we stopped off at a place called Red Rocks Amphitheater. It's kinda neat, with, well, lots of red rocks. :) It's a sort of natural amphitheater, and they hold shows here on occasion. Rock shows, I'm guessing. The weather has been beautiful. God couldn't have been kinder to us. I'm not arrogant enough to think He's provided this lovely weather just for us, because I know there are a whole bunch of other people who are thanking Him for it as well. But I am grateful for it, and I thank Him for gifting us with such pretty blue skies. It's been perfect weather.

What a neat day today. We got to Keystone yesterday (Sunday) to find it under 6 inches or so of snow. Funny thing about Keystone. It's like it just shut down for the winter. The whole thing is one big tourist trap, of course, being the "home" of Mt. Rushmore. But only one little restaurant was open, and the hotel we stayed in only had a few rooms cleaned and ready for guests. Still, it was quaint. With everything covered in snow, it looked like a Christmas postcard. Even though we've had our fill of snow this winter, it was pretty. So we woke up this morning all excited to see a beautiful blue sky, not a cloud in it, and bright sun. We were off to see Mt. Rushmore and the Presidents. :) I'd seen it before, when I was 13. But it's been a few years, and I was anxious to see it again. And to see the reactions of my kids and Hubby. Well, I wasn't disappointed. I had seen it before in the summer, so it was neat to see the area all snowy. After we had seen ever

Well, so far I've been headache free for the entire day. That's two days in a row. Whoo-hoo! We had an interesting day today. Got up at a reasonable time and hit the road for the Badlands. If I had not seen them before, I might not even believe they existed. It was flat terraine, then we got into some gently rolling hills. Pretty. A little different from the flat. Then all of a sudden, we started to see the eroded look. I started to breathe easier, because I think the family was starting to think I'd lost my mind. **G** Once we were in there, though, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We took alot of pictures, and it was hard to boil it down to just a few. But I think I got some of the best shots. When we first got in, there was a tiny bit of snow on the ground. Not alot. In some places there wasn't any. But by the exit of the park, it was pretty full of snow. At least the roads weren't bad, and we made it to Wall, then on to Keystone. Here I am with the girls. They&#

First, I got an award! Yey! Thanks, Judy. :) I give you the award right back. I'm not sure how to put it on here, but I'll work on that tomorrow night. So we're in South Dakota. Yey! No pics yet. We got a late start (long story...shortened version following) and just wanted to get as close to Wall, SD as possible. It's supposed to snow tomorrow (Sunday) so I don't know how much we'll get to do. We're in a little place called Oacoma, about 150 miles east of Wall and the Badlands. On to my little adventure yesterday. I've been having these headaches all week long. They seem to hit every other day. Grr! So yesterday (Friday) when we were getting ourselves together in the morning, I started with the blurred vision and headache. DH hurried to get me into see a doctor. Well, when I explained all that had been going on all week long, the doctor ordered an immediate CT scan. It came back normal. They even found my brain in there somewhere. **G** But the diagnosi

I was all geared up to write something for Monday. But when I went to bed Sunday night I started with what I can only guess was the beginning of a migraine. I didn't sleep well, and Monday morning I woke up with my eyes feeling like sandpaper. Super light sensitive. So I did very little on the computer. Figured it would all be over by Tuesday. Ha! Tuesday was worse. We had a BEAUTIFUL day here yesterday. Sunny skies...close to 50 degrees. I wanted to go out a bit, but the bright light just hurt my eyes and my head too much. So I just laid around with my eyes closed, curtains pulled shut. What a boring day! I did get caught up on my sleep, though. lol. Of course, now all my good ideas have flown out of my achy brain. Today I'm feeling better, but there's still alot of tension behind my eyes. So I'm not going to push it. Just wanted to pop on and say hi, and I hope to be back for real soon. Friday we're heading west for Spring Break. We're planning on heading up t

Well, it's Friday. I made it through the week and posted on a regular basis. lol. That's pretty good for me. But today I'm left with nothing interesting to say. But that might be a good thing. The kids have friends coming over tonight, so if I don't want them to be embarrassed by a messy house, I need to clean up. It's not too bad. Just a little clutter that needs to be addressed anyway, so now's a good time to do it. So let me just wish y'all a great Friday and a wonderful, restful or fun weekend. Thanks to Marianne for being so faithful to my blog this week, and actually commenting! It means alot. :) Marianne, I like who your favorite author is. lol. I'll have to get some of her books to read. And thanks to Charity who responded with such words of wisdom on yesterday's post. Truly, what she said made alot of sense. And Charity, if you're reading this, loved the TP-ing Casa de Cluney short story. I found it by wandering through your links. See y

A few weeks ago, there was this little discussion going on over on my writer's list. Ok, so it wasn't exacly a LITTLE discussion. Although everyone who wrote in was in agreement with everyone else, we were all quite up in arms about a comment made by some editor somewhere (don't know who she is or who she works for) who said something to the effect of, older authors (over 40) write too old fashioned. She basically said that all you have to do is look at the picture on the back to know if the book is going to be up to par with the "new" standards. So the discussion began with, can women over 40 get it right? It went all over the place from "don't judge a book by its cover" (or it's author's ability by her picture) to "rules don't make good story, good story makes good story." Well, in answer to the original question, duh! That's a no brainer for me. Of course we can get it right. And we do. There seems to be this terrible st

DH came home the other day, freaking out after an appointment with a dermatologist. He has what we thought was psoriasis on his forehead. Flares up when he's stressed. Turns out it's something else a little less complicated, thank God. But that's not the point. The doctor, while doing the examination, had to feel hubby's skin. So he ran his fingers very gently all over hubby's face. The funny thing, DH said, was that it just didn't feel right. He knew the doc was just doing his job, but he said it felt so personal to have a person who he had never met before touching his face in such a way. He said it was more unnerving than having a check up of more...ahem...personal areas of his body. So of course, being a romance writer, I had to analyze that reaction to see how I might apply it to a story. A touch to the face can be very intimate. There's an emotion that goes with it, something that goes far beyond lust. It usually expresses, IMHO, a deep affection. That

Yesterday I was being a good girl, and reading over the blogs of some of my friends. :) Judy's blog had a question that made me think alot of my current favorite song, "Letter To Me" by Brad Paisley. The question on Judy's blog was, basically, if you could go back in time, what would you change about your past? Well, there are alot of little things I might change. But looking back at all the major things in my life, there is very little I'd want to be different. I'd still marry the same man, have the same children, make the same friends. I would take each day as it comes and not worry too much about the future, for one. But that's not too much different from what I already did so far in my life. I would spend more time with loved ones, especially my dad, who died twenty-five years ago, today, when I was just sixteen. And of course, I'd dedicate myself alot sooner to my writing. Here's the link to the Brad Paisley song on You Tube. I tried to embed,

So I'm only a week late in posting, but here I am again. :) We had a very nice trip to Greenville, SC, for a commissioning service for hubby. He's almost finished CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) which is a program to train hospital chaplains. But our denomination held this weekend conference type thing for all their home missionaries and chaplains. It was nice to meet some new people, and to spend time with others who are facing some of the same things we are. I think one of the nicest things, though, other than the new friends we made, was the weather. On Saturday the temps in Greenville got up close to 70! We were out in just jeans and short sleeved shirts. A lovely taste of spring, but then we had to come back to the Great White North. Some of our snow has started to melt, PTL, and yesterday we were even able to go out without coats and scarves and gloves. Just a light jacket. But...this morning we woke up to another dusting of snow, and ice on the ground where the piles o

I truly begin to understand why birds and other beasts head south for the winter. Especially when they live this far north. It has been SO cold. The snow is fine. I don't mind it all that much. But the sub zero temps...I was happy yesterday to find we'd gotten all the way up to 14. lol. So we're heading south for the weekend. Well, starting today. We'll be home on Monday. I am looking forward to warmer temps, even if it's still going to be cool where we'll be. I just wish it were longer than a weekend! I guess I'm not as much of a "snowbaby" as I thought. I just hope we can go somewhere a little less wintery when we leave here. So how about that cool banner at the top of my page? My dear friend, Judy, made it from this quote. I just loved that quote. My daughter told me that her teacher has it up on the wall of the English classroom. It's so fitting for me, a reader and a writer. And a chocolate lover. **g** Enjoy the rest of the week, and I sh

I hope everyone that stops by here today has a wonderful day full of love. You don't have to be in a romance, because romantic love isn't the only kind of love out there. And even if you're far from family and those you love, or if you're all alone in the world, there is always Someone who loves you. God loves you, and He sent His Son to die for your sins because He loved you even before you were conceived. That's love! So in honor of this day, I offer you two choices of video from You Tube. It's the same song on both, by one of my favorite instrumental duos. But I couldn't decide which video I liked best so I'll put them both up and let you choose. :) It's a beautiful song called "Sometimes When it Rains" and both videos (slide shows, really) have lovely pictures that reflect the beauty of nature, showing a touch of God's love to the world. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Don't let the gray picture above fool you. This vid

As I promised, here are my tree sprite lovers in the summer. I can understand why they like this spot. It's pretty no matter what time of year. So now I'll confess. I made up the legend. I don't know anything about these guys. There's no identifying plaque, so I don't even know who the artist is, what they are supposed to be (but I do think they are supposed to be tree sprites because they just kinda look like concrete tree people). But I'm intrigued every time I see it, and I figured the pair made a good "conversation piece" for this romantic time of year. As far as plans for the future...Laconia is definitely out. That was my first choice, or maybe tied with Lynchburg, VA, but oh well! Neither of them panned out. So there's a hospital in Florida that is really hot on my hubby's tale. They want to fly him there for an interview. And while I'm not too thrilled about the sub zero temperatures we've been getting here, I'm even less th

Since I don't know where we're going to be next winter, and since I have never seen SO MUCH snow (it's snowing AGAIN today!) in my entire life, I've actually been having fun taking pictures of it. Next year we might be in sunny Florida, or temperate Virginia. No, that's not a hint of anything to come. Just throwing out places. :) But I don't think we'll be in a place quite this cold or that gets this much snow. And that's fine. While I've been enjoying the snow, I don't have to go out in it too much. My family, bless their hearts, do, and I know they are just sick of it. But now I'm rambling. Sorry. In honor of the snow and Valentine's day, I've posted another picture. Two, actually. Every now and then, when we walk down to the park, we get a glimpse of a pair of tree sprites. They're odd creatures, and not little fairy types, either. Tall, slender and willowy. Like trees. But if you sneak up on them real quiet like, you might cat

No, nothing deep, or mean, or cute and witty today. **grin** It snowed today, here in the Heartland. Snowed alot! And I just wanted to share some pictures I took this afternoon after the snow stopped falling. Well, I'll just leave it at this one picture for now. This is the little stream that you can see pictures of on the bottom of this page. One in the summer, one in December with a little snow and some ice. But after today, you can't even see the stream! I don't think I've ever seen so much snow in my whole entire life. Well, I take that back. I saw alot of snow when we were in Vermont in February, 1999. But that was a long time ago. :) This was fun. Kids were home from school with a snow day. Only DH had to go out in it. We didn't have to, but we went anyway to get some pictures. Have a great day. :)

So today I had the immense displeasure of seeing The Planet of the Apes . 1968 version. Hubby stayed home from work, you see. Seems he's picked up the bug that went around the rest of the family the two weeks before. And so, with DH home, naturally, the TV was on all day long. Hey, it's just a fact of life. As he was flipping through the channels, here's this scene that looked to me like a bunch of cavemen running through a corn field. What the heck? I said out loud. I thought it was some new Geico commercial. Grr...Me and my big mouth. DH stopped, and we had to sit through two or so agonizing hours of really bad acting, creepy 60's movie music, and the biggest piece of heretical junk I've ever seen. I was disappointed in Charleton Heston. I expected a lot more from the man who played Moses and Ben Hur. Of course, I don't know why I still bother being disappointed in Hollywood folk. It seems they're natural inclinations are so opposed to my own that there w

No, you won't find any Shakespeare here. I just thought it was a catchy title for this post. **GRIN** But if you read to the end, you might see the relevance. I've been a bit of a mess this week, so I'm sorry I haven't been as faithful over here. But I'm starting to feel better, and I want to get myself back up and running again. No, not literally. It is WAY too cold outside to go running. I woke up this morning to a groan-worthy low of -12. At least I didn't have to go out in it so early, but the kids and hubby did, the poor dears. At least their buses are heated. Anyway, I thought I'd pop on to say something really witty and deep. Ok, so nothing very witty has come to mind let alone deep. So let me rephrase. I thought I'd pop on to say something. Now I don't like to post just to post. Really I don't. I mean, what's the purpose in that? It seems kinda, well, meaningless. And now I'm getting repetitious. The funny thing is, when I'm f

My family and I are so saddened tonight. We just read the headlines that actor Heath Ledger has died. I didn't know this young man personally, but a couple of his movies have brought alot of entertainment to our family. One of my favorite movies of all time is A Knight's Tale. It's not deep, yet it is. It had no really earth shattering message...yet it did. The whole thing was a case study in contrasts. So I'm very sad to think that this shining star has burned out so early. He will be missed. And now I have to vent. This tragedy comes on the heals of another young Hollywood death, that of Brad Renfro, also from an overdose, if I'm not mistaken. And that one after the attempted suicide of actor Owen Wilson. It's going to be interesting to find out what the authorities decide about Mr. Ledger's death--whether it was accidental or a planned suicide. On one hand, I'd like to believe it was an accident, but how tragic is that? However, knowing the track reco