A Moving Experience

An amazing video followed by a thought-provoking quote, something to ponder as we welcome the New Year....

"Night is drawing nigh. How long the road is. But, for all the time the journey has already taken, how you have needed every second of it." --Dag Hammarskjold

Remembering Christmas

If I have your address, you probably received this card in the mail by now (if you'd like to receice a card next year, send me your snail mail address and I will put you on my list). The photo is a little different. I played in Photoshop a bit and I really like the results, even though the changes I made were quite subtle and very simple.

A very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you...

Christmas-that magic blanket
that wraps itself about us,
that something so intangible
that it is like a fragrance.
It may weave a spell of nostalgia.

Christmas may be a day of feasting,
or of prayer, but always it will be
a day of remembrance--
a day in which we think of everything
we have ever loved.
--Augusta E. Rundell

Winter Wonderland Fascimile

(and Beware the Long Arm of the Law)

Here are a few photos of the teency amount of snow we received last week. I was awake at 3 a.m. and went outside to watch the white stuff falling from the sky.

Pitiful, ain't it?

If you look closely, you can see my footprint in the right corner of this shot. Want to know what shoes I was wearing? I had on a pair of flip-flops! My feet were freezing!

This is the stump of one of the cedar trees taken out by Hurricane Rita.

Now, about the long arm of the law. My daughter was in Sam's and she saw two older women looking like they were about to engage in a throw-down, or at least a shouting match. It seems one of them thought the other one had cut in line at the check-out. I asked what they looked like and she said they looked like they came straight from her grandmother's Sunday School class. I don't think anyone's "witness" was tarnished, as all they did was shake their finger (their pointer finger) at each other! Daughter did not feel the need to intervene in this altercation (if you remember, she recently graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice, and now she feels obligated to uphold the law everywhere she goes!).

But when she was driving home, at a particularly busy intersection, she saw two grown men with their windows down, yelling at each other and pointing (that) finger (not their pointer finger) at each other. There was a lot of traffic and so she pulled out her badge she has to get into court and discreetly covered the edges so the men did not know it was just paper and then proceeded to act as though she was calling someone on her cell phone to make a report. It did not take long for the men to roll up their windows and not another harsh word was said.

And then my mother had the story to tell about how two older women in WalMart got into in the food place and one was picking up a chair when a man intervened and saved the day (the police came later and took them both away). All of this leads us to wonder, what is it with senior citizens and their tempers these days? Lawsie.

Also, in another reference to the long arm of the law, we saw my son's first juvenile probation officer this weekend. She remembered him and us and seemed glad to hear that he was doing well. Sometimes I wonder if they get tired of hearing mostly bad news about their young clients. We were fortunate to always have good experiences with any of the authorities we had to deal with during that time.

Oh yeah, I put a "follow this blog" thing on my sidebar. If you want to do it, all you do it click and then it does something and your little icon is there. I am not sure what the point of the thing is, but I thought I'd try it out and see what happens. Blogger is making it so easy to add a bunch of junk to your sidebar these days!

Snow! Tomorrow!

My oldest heard it on the radio. My husband saw it in the newspaper. Snow, coming our way! Both of them sometimes tend to make things sound more sure than they are so I wanted to read the article for myself. Bottom line--possible flurries. IMO, the word "flurries" does not even deserve to be spoken in the same sentence as the word "snow". When spoken together, as in "snow flurries tomorrow" all people hear around here is the word "snow". Then excitement abounds, along with stories of how we behaved the last time it snowed (and stuck to the ground), which was somewhere around 1992, if my memory serves me right. At the present moment, it is raining and cold.

It is finals week at work and yesterday and today, I proctored a couple of finals. One of them was a Psyc 101 class, where one of the students taking the final was a big tall basketball player. You know what I love about some of the male student athletes I have seen so far on the job? When they have to take a test, or ask you for special permission to get in a class that is already filled (and they forgot on the way over from their advisor's office what it was they were supposed to ask for), if you watch real closely, you can almost see the wheels turning in their brains! (Oh that is a shameful observation! But notice that I did not say all male student athletes are that way!)

I also enjoy interacting with the international students. I think it must take great courage to come so far to school, and in some cases, barely knowing the language. I am amazed at how they can still manage to make good grades in spite of English not being their first language. Today, while proctoring the exam, I had to try and explain to an Oriental student what the word "depict" meant. That was a tough one to be asked to explain, given the cirumstances. Poor thing, I gave an example and asked if that helped and she said "yes" but I don't know if she really understood, or was just being polite. I helped her with a registration problem at the beginning of the semester and now when we see each other out on campus, we always speak to each other. She probably gets a lot of impatient stares tossed her way so I do try to go out of my way to be kind to her and others like her.

And finally, a comment or two to Tab Calhoun, formerly known as Simple Blog writer: When I signed on to do this post, I saw I had a comment from you that needed to be moderated. I think I needed to "approve" it because it was a comment on an older post. Anyway, you said:

"Soda is the devil's juice. Whatever vocabulary you use, it's bad for you and your new-new doc is right about that.

Albert, huh? I was just wondering if muses have to be women and you answered that questions."

The devil's juice, huh? I like that! I'll have to remember the description if I am ever tempted to take a swig again!

Spooky Rach mentioned her muse's name once, and it was a male name. I decided if she could have a male muse, so could I!

You Might Be Wondering What I Have Been Up To (or not!)

Honestly, these women do look better in person than they do on this scan! I made a few mistakes while trying to do this, but I had fun anyway. When I got everything painted, I covered the canvas in beeswax. It gives the whole thing a nice sheen. If you want to see all the printing you can click on the picture--it is honking huge, I did not reduce it for uploading as I often do. I want to do some more of these as inspiration strikes. It was a learning process. I learned you ought to kind of plan ahead, that you shouldn't get excited and draw and paint the figures before thinking about and doing the background. In my defense, I am accustomed to working in Photoshop where you can add and remove layers as you go, or you can delete down to the original and start all over again. Anyway, I like them, even though they look a bit spooky!

I've been off my beloved Diet Coke now for 10 days now. I do know it is better for me but I still miss my old friend and snacking buddy. Sniff, sniff. I think the doctor is all right, just maybe a little weird. Lord knows I can't fault a person for being weird! But the evidence from the blood tests was not so good. I'll give you three little hints, no four--sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure--and the accompanying medication, none of it was unexpected. Now I just have to deal with it and decide whether or not I want to take care of myself. Everything can be improved with weight loss, changes in my diet and exercise. In dispensing the prescription for the diabetes, he said "I can give you medicine to help you along. I can't heal you. But you can possibly heal yourself." So, there is hope (there is always some sort of hope). I asked the doctor if it was similar to an addict dealing with a drug addiction, where they often have to reach bottom and decide to do the things necessary to live a healthier life and he agreed that was pretty much the idea. The really sad thing is, I do not feel like I have "hit bottom". I am still sort of in denial. Hopefully that will change.

My nephew came in on Thanksgiving day carrying a brand new Nikon D80 camera, causing me to have a serious lusting spell. I have been wanting a new camera similar to that one.

I think I've decided what I want to take when I can start taking classes at the university. I am thinking about taking one class in the spring semester, but I don't know if I will be able to or not. Anyway, I am going take all my classes with the goal of majoring in Spanish with a minor in Art. Working full time and taking one or two classes a semester, it will probably take several years for me to actually earn a degree, but that is the path I am going to follow. I had three years of Spanish in high school and have always wished I could have continued to learn the language. As for the art, maybe I can learn more about how to draw pictures of women that are not so spooky looking! And I want to learn more about photography. I am pleased to have a goal in my head.

I am still loving my job. It is in some ways, quite the cushy position to have. The people students and faculty) are certainly fun and interesting. Sometimes dealing with the paperwork is a pain in the rear--we have had several people go on conferences and that means paperwork has to be filled out in proper order before and after the trip. It is absolutely amazing how helpless these PhD types can be when confronted with government paperwork! I don't understand half of it myself either. But I can always count on the friendly lady in "travel" to call and correct me when I am wrong. She does not speak, she barks. I don't think she means to be so gruff, it is just that travel is what she does all day long and she can't understand why the rest of us can't get the forms filled out correctly (and she has worked there for a bajillion years and is in an office in a round building with no window and a curved wall covered in brick--that alone ought to be enough to drive anyone crazy, IMO)!

Well, this seems enough info for the day. Possibly there will be more to follow. . .

My Adventures in the Twilight Zone

NaBloPoMoWho??? I've definitely failed that task!

There are a couple of things I know that have distracted me from posting lately. One is that I feel downright bored and boring. Consequently, I am going to be tapering off my anti-depressant (with my doctor's approval). It seems to be my pattern that I get to where I need the medicine very badly, it works very well, and then becomes apparent that it is working too well because everything gets "dulled down" and "muted". It's like I can't feel anything anymore and I want my feeling back, even if "feeling" does not feel so good.

I worked Saturday on a painting/collage. I will post it when I am finished with it and can get a good picture of it. That's the other thing about being on an anti-depressant. My muse just disappears after a while. I've just decided, I think his name is Albert. If you see him wandering around anywhere, tell him to come back to me. I promise I will be nice and appreciative of him!

Christmas is barreling down on us like a freight train. I tend to get caught up in the expectations of the season, though probably like everyone else, things will be simpler this year. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it will bring more reflection on the real meaning of the season.

I went to a new doctor this week. I pulled his name out of the list of people who were on my insurance plan. My old "new" doctor went and moved himself into the sleep clinic field. I am still mad at him about that. But this new "new" guy, well that was a trip. There was no one else in the waiting room when I got there. The receptionist was oozing enthusiasm about the doctor. "I think you'll like him," she said. Turns out, the man is her husband. They have six children, all home schooled, and they help out in the office too. I heard them talking to another patient, but I never SAW anyone else there but me. It felt a bit like walking onto a Twilight Zone set.

The doctor himself wants me to get off Diet Coke. I get the feeling he would want me to get off regular Coke if I was drinking that. He says the stuff is addicting and "you drink it to feel normal". He also says that even though it does not have that illegal stuff that was in it originally, the ingredients come from the same leaf, and that is not good (cue in the Twilight Zone music). It's no longer illegal, but it is not good, the stuff they put in there. I asked him if I could at least finish off what I have at home. He did not think that was too funny.

Of course I have to go do all the requisite blood work and then report back to him. I suspect the news will not be good on the blood work. I am getting to that age where all your bad eating habits seem to catch up with you. I suppose the good news is, I am still young enough to make changes that will benefit my health. I'm beginning to have scary little visions of returning for that followup visit. What if he is a nut job, and his wife is in on it with him? (Cue the Twilight Zone music again)

I'm kidding. Sort of.

Stay tuned for next week's episode. . .

Oops!

I seem to have lost a couple of days in my posting schedule! Ah well, it just proves that I can be flexible when necessary.

We've got a preacher guy who shows up every semester to share his version of the gospel. He stands out in the quad and just preaches his heart out to whoever is passing by. I am amazed at his stamina and his ability to project his voice. You can hear him from quite a distance. He just goes on and on, like the Energizer bunny. I have mixed feelings about him being out there. The students seem to see him as an odd distraction. I would guess that a lot of them have never heard this kind of hell fire and brimstone preaching. The people who work on campus seem to see him as an annoyance. It seems they recently had to call campus police to come and stand by. The preacher had specifically pointed out a couple of girls and announced they were dressed like wh*res. Some in the crowd were ready to defend the honor of the girls by jumping on the preacher. They were going to "shoot the messenger", so to speak.

Yesterday, on our way to the library book sale, we passed by him. He was sitting on a bench. I know he was praying. I appreciate his sincerity and admire his fortitude, though I am not so sure about his method. I'd like to sit with him and hear more about his story.