My New Year's Resolution.

Actually, this really IS my resolution this year!!

What's yours?

Lights....

you may know by now that I'm a total sucker for a good light show!

This is the best I've EVER seen!

totally amazing

I find this interesting......and a little sad.

BLUFFTON, TX -- Johnny C. Parks died two days before his first birthday more than a century ago. His grave slipped from sight along with the rest of the tiny town of Bluffton when Lake Buchanan was filled 55 years later.
Now, the cracked marble tombstone engraved with the date Oct. 15, 1882, which is normally covered by 20 to 30 feet of water, has been eerily exposed as a yearlong drought shrinks one of Texas' largest lakes.

Across the state, receding lakes have revealed a prehistoric skull, ancient tools, fossils and a small cemetery that appears to contain the graves of freed slaves. Some of the discoveries have attracted interest from local historians, and looters also have scavenged for pieces of history. More than two dozen looters have been arrested at one site.

"In an odd way, this drought has provided an opportunity to view and document, where appropriate, some of these finds and understand what they consist of," said Pat Mercado-Allinger, the Texas Historical Commission's archeological division director. "Most people in Texas probably didn't realize what was under these lakes."

Texas finished its driest 12 months ever with an average of 8.5 inches of rain through September, nearly 13 inches below normal. Water levels in the region's lakes, most of which were manmade, have dropped by more than a dozen feet in many cases.
The vanishing water has revealed the long-submerged building foundations of Woodville, Okla., which was flooded in 1944 when the Red River was dammed to form Lake Texoma. A century-old church has emerged at Falcon Lake, which straddles the Texas-Mexico border on the Rio Grande.

Read the rest here.....

Bad Plan??

I keep thinking I should separate these two.



Because they're really not as alike as they look!

the ODDEST thing I've ever seen!

You may remember that awhile back I received an inheritance from my Grandmother.

Well, tonight I needed to fix this....

So I went looking through this....

To find this.....

But I did NOT expect to find this....

Which did indeed contain THIS.....

Anyone got any ideas why Grandmother'd have TEETH stored in her buttons???

nah, me neither...

Perspective.

The following is an article I first wrote for my church newsletter for the December 2006 issue.


Over the last month I've been working my way through The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, I've finished Vol. I and I can now tell you the plot to every Sherlock Holmes story ever written. Here you go... Someone comes to good old 221-B Baker Street with a set of events/facts. These all add up to person A being guilty of something, ol’ Sherl sees the facts from some off the wall viewpoint and puts them together to show that in actuality person B is really the guilty party. He then employs various ways of proving himself right.



I'm not a big fan of Halloween, it's seemed to me that it just encourages greed and gluttony...things we try to teach our kids to avoid. However, wanting to allow my 3 year old some fun and not be known as "that mother" -- you know, the mean one who doesn't allow anything "unwholesome" (read enjoyable) in the house -- I tried to find some way to celebrate this non-holiday with a good message. So, instead of going out and collecting a bunch of candy (no I wouldn't let him eat it anyway) we stayed on our front porch and gave candy away. He had a blast!! He loved seeing all the costumes and got a big kick out of putting candy in the various containers....or throwing it at the folks when too excited. Since we had approx 100 folks come through our neighborhood in the 2 hours we were out there he saw many fun costumes and had many folks exclaim over him. He actually looked a LOT happier than the kids (and adults) that were busy filling up their pillowcases. As we sat there refilling our bowl to be sure we didn't run out of candy ("Need more candy for kids mom!!") It went through my head that it truly is better to give than to receive. Sonshine learned all about giving and I enjoyed a very nice greed and gluttony free Halloween.



OK, we've all heard the glass half full or half empty bit before. But, truly, something as simple as a change in the perspective you're viewing a set of facts/events from could change the way the whole picture looks. My Grandma used to say that we decide each morning if we're going to be happy that day. Also known as "You can get glad in the same shoes you got mad in." As we spend the end of this year reviewing the events that have passed, let's try to look at them from a different perspective. Maybe it isn't so much the event itself that is bothersome as much as how we are viewing it.

I challenge each of us to start the new year off deciding to be happy with whatever comes our way. And keep looking for just how to make lemonade out of that great big lemon you've been handed.



Love you

Sarah



"When someone gives you free fertilizer for your garden, you don't complain about the smell." Earlene Fowler

Me and My Muse

Susan Werner has a song called "Courting the Muse".

This song's been playing in my head a lot lately. By the way, if you don't know Susan Werner, check her out. I saw her in a one lady show 10 years ago and was most impressed!

Stephen King has said many times in his author's notes that he likens getting a story idea to his "muse has shat on his head".

I've been thinking about my muse a lot lately. I think she must be similar to Fawkes the Phoenix and has spent the last 6 months as a pile of ashes. I've been hoping that means that she'll arise with a whole bunch of new ideas for me.

Well, over the last couple months she's started circling my head again....pooping here and there, I'd occasionally get hit with an idea, only to have it roll off my back where it'd be lost before I could grab it. I'd come to the conclusion that the poor muse was constipated! I kept offering her prune flavored crackers....and waited, and waited, and waited for results. Finally, last week, I filled her water bowl with a warm prune juice and Sprite mixture. After all, it's my NEVER FAIL Constipation rememdy.

And as of today, I now have 5 new quilts in my mind and 3 blog posts (counting this one).

So, for the next few days I'll be easy to find. Just look for the girl covered in wet gooey muse shit.

:-) and loving it!

This week I'm thankful for an unplugged muse.

in search of peace of mind

I've decided to try and empty my overloaded brain more regularly. In order to make this more fun I made a quick trip to the store Friday....

The little pad I'm keeping in my purse...this one is for all those great funny ideas that I tend to forget by the time I get to a computer.

The middle sized one is for my ever present list of things that I want to do..."When I have more time on my hands." I figure this way I won't be caught whenever that day gets here!

The large one is for allt he ideas I have for my dream home. One day, probably many years from now I will be able to build my own home...and I want to be able to include all the ideas and avoid all the pet peeves that I have now.

These things regularly circle my brain...usually when I'm trying to fall asleep, hopefully I'll now be able to write them down and not have them stuck in my head anymore.

Success and Contentment.

So Adrienne does this thing she calls "Feeling Rich". Periodically she will tell the world about little things that make her feel "rich".

Today I'm spinning that thought off in my own direction. (now, don't be scared...)

I want to discuss things that make me feel successful.

This is one of those AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION POSTS...so get your reflection caps on folks.
(you know as in reflecting on your self and your life... NOT the hats with the little mirrors all over, or the ones made of high shine foil)

I've been down for a couple days. Saturday was the worst of it, but not all...mostly I just got down. Even post-hysterectomy I still have to deal with PMS so we can blame it on hormones :-)

Tonight as I got up and going for work I realized that I feel better today than I have in about a week. I started to wonder what had changed....

Well, for starters I got a good solid 6 hours of sleep. (come on now, everyone oooo and aaahhh here.) But it was more than being tired. I realized I felt better because I felt successful about 'yesterday' (it was yesterday to me, even though you'd say it was this morning...so roll with me here) Yesterday I was able to accomplish a few things that'd been sitting on my Todo List since last week. They're not big accomplishments, but it was bugging me that they were being left undone. I'd found myself so caught up in emotional turmoil that I was unable to focus on the things on my Todo List. So yesterday after work, I was able to sit and order a couple things online that I'd been meaning to order. Only then could I sit with my embroidery enjoying the rain and my online playlist.

I think that, as a rule, we forget the importance of the little successes. Simply being able to mark something off of the Todo List is a success. And every success leads to calm and contentment.

Hopefully, the next time my day falls apart before 10am like it did last Saturday I will remember to focus on finding success and not brood. Or at least I'll start singing this song which never fails to make me smile!

So, what makes you feel successful?

When do you feel content?

Me and Richard Simmons

I think I've told you guys before that I'm a big fan of Richard Simmons.

It started waay back in High School. Back in my actively anorexic days. (anorexia is like what I've been told about alcoholism...the demons never leave, you just keep beating them with a stick whenever they decide to pop up again).
Anyway, back in the day..as it were...I would exercise to Sweatin to the Oldies...the ORIGINAL. (yup, I did say waaay back when). I love that the exercises are basically dance routines and that Richie (as I can't help but call him) is simply hilarious. He's a ham from start to finish and every time I find myself laughing. No matter how many times I've seen the tape.

So, at the beginning of '08 I decided to get back to exercising.

I started off walking the halls at work for 15min each night...but eventually got too busy to do that.

I tried walking the neighborhood, but it petered out too. Then I found a boxed set of Sweatin to the Oldies Vols 1-4....well, now, that I just couldn't pass up!!

I figured if I got bored with one DVD I'd just switch to another one and still keep my schedule going. Trying to exercise each night that I'm home alone in the dead of night. This worked pretty well until my recent schedule change. Now that I have 4 days off every week I'm switching to days for that stretch. This is planned and is a very good thing for the family. I get the chance to do things with the kids and give hubby a break that I just don't get when I work scattered nights and have to stay on a night routine. However, the down side to flipping my schedule every 3 days is that I no longer have 4 nights a week with hours of time to myself. This means I've lost that time when I did all my sewing....and all my exercising.

As with all schedule changes adjustments are being made and I will over the course of the next month figure out good times to add these back in. In the meantime I have started back to walking the halls at work for 15min in the dead of night. At least on nights when I get a "dead of night" time. We'll see how that goes.

A couple of months ago I got rather bored and found myself googling Richard Simmons for no good reason other than staying awake at work. After surfing his website for awhile and reading all these stories I realized that MY story is just like the others on his site. So I clicked on the "contact Richard" linkyloo and fired off an email letting Richard know how I've been dating him on the sly for YEARS AND YEARS now. In order to send the email you have to fill out this form wanting name and address and phone number stuff. Well, I hate those forms on principle and never fill in the correct information. So, putting my middle name as "last name" and leaving off a number or two of my address I filled out the form and sent in the email without giving it another thought. I mean really, he probably has an entire staff of mail screeners donchaknow!

Imagine my surprise when I see an envelope last week addressed to my first and middle name with this bizarro version of my address laying on my dining room table along with the day's mail.

and inside??




Now, it being more than two days since I fell off the turnip truck I'm entirely aware this quite possibly wasn't written by Richard. And it's probably a stock phrase/signature.....and I am not a person who gives a flip about getting autographs. I mean not.at.all.

But for some reason this little cardstock pic gives me encouragement....and when I look at it I find that tiny spark of motivation to get up and exercise again....

Another update on MightyMom

Further update on MightyMom, she's recovering as well as can be expected and will be home tomorrow. Then starts her six weeks of convalesence. Thanks to all for the prayers and expressions of concern.

Update on MightyMom

Subvet here, my better half has directed me to give everyone updates on her condition.

According to her doctor the surgery went well. Everything they planned on doing they did, nothing else had to be done. She had a minimal loss of blood.

I spoke to MM a couple of hours ago. She's still groggy but other than that, doing okay.

So far the children aren't missing her too much. Neither are the cats (although who can tell with them?).

For those of you who looked at the last post and wondered how the plastic hammer got on the ceiling fan blade, our youngest son has had LOTS of practice! Pretty good shot, he got it square in the center (thats my boy!).

I'll post updates as I get them, please keep MM in your prayers.

Thanks,
Subvet