Pretty in Purple

Sitting pretty. Waiting so patiently to be planted. I am keeping it well hydrated. It has blooms in pink, blue and purple. A mix of colors. I was talking to a co-worker today. She said that her daughter does add the aluminum sulfate to her hydrangea to get it to bloom blue.

My daughter has been sick. She has a lump on her left parotid gland. I am keeping an eye on her and on the lump. It is only painful when she pushes on it. She doesn't want me to make a doctor appointment to have it checked out because she thinks she is jinxed because of the moles that had to be removed. The latest one developed a pimple on it and was giving her quite a bit of discomfort. It is better now.

She cleaned house for me today. I was very thankful. She said she did it so she wouldn't fall asleep. And she wants a trampoline. I am undecided about that. If she does get one it will be one with the full netting all the way around it. I wonder if they will get like pools. Where the owner must keep it fenced safely away from small children so they won't hurt themselves. Maybe they already are. Do the insurance companies raise your insurance if they see a trampoline in your yard? Do the Amish have insurance on their homes?

One worker today said he was bored that there was nothing to do. I helped him set up a Linux server. It was fun for him and a refresher course for me. It didn't take much of my time. No more than half an hour on my part here and there to help him through a couple of snags. He doesn't work for my organization. In fact he is sort of the competition. I don't care. Education is education in my book.

Golly Pink

My peonies on the west side of the house are blooming awesome! At least something is fruitful this year. I STILL do not have the hydrangea in the ground. Good grief. It was all I could do to get the grass mowed tonight. Hee.

Here is a detail shot of the above photo. Click on it for larger view. Go-o-o-lly!

Hamburgers, hot dogs and ..... Hawk?

It was hot. How hot was it? So hot and hazy that a poor hawk slammed right into a transformer and shorted the electric out for about three seconds. He was fried.

I went to my brother's house for a cook-out today and some of us witnessed the ordeal just after he hit the pole. Flames, a popping sound and smoke. Dinner's ready!

My daughter and I had left our house and the electric had been off since noon. I was beginning to think maybe I was jinxing electricity today. We traveled to join some of the family in the Memorial day celebrations when this flying fiasco happened.

The electric company sent someone right out. My older sister happened to know him. He was good friends with her daughter and boyfriend. He was very accommodating and posed for me and even moved his bucket when I couldn't get a good shot of the bird.

More pictures of the event here.

And, I got to see the little chihuahua Brandi today. I checked. She was actually six ounces when they got her. She fit in a coffee cup. (Mental note to self. Do not drink coffee at brother's house!)

Home h(e)aven

For more years than not my home has been in Ohio. I have heard Tanya Tucker's song "When I Die" where she is singing that Texas was as close to heaven as she could get. And The Bellamy Brothers sing about "Dixie" . Where is your piece of heaven? I was looking at most of the posts on the Photo Friday challenge to see what people would post for their version of Home. I was wondering if somebody would post a picture of 'home base' from baseball and they did. Many posted pictures of a bird house or nest. Some a picture of their city. Most did pictures of their house or a house that they had lived in at one time. A lot posted pictures of their family members.

One posted a picture of what was left of their home after Katrina hit it. I noticed that their last sentence said something about "we looked around at the damaged house and then we went back home." They were already considering their new abode home. It just sounded kind of sad.

I had a big family get together today. About 35 people were there. I notice that when you are holding babies and small toddlers you don't get to take pictures. No pictures to post this year. I will be at another get together tomorrow, maybe I can mange a few photos from there.

In the meantime my home is getting a big neglected. I still have not planted my hydrangea. My grass needs mowed. I was going to do that Saturday morning but my neighbor had a yard full of men tearing down an old shed and they were tearing up shrubs, cement flooring and such I didn't want to be outside. As it is they needed my back driveway to pull a truck out of his yard. It got bogged down in the mud after they filled it to the brim with cement. I wanted to take pictures, but thought it was best not to. My neighbors are extremely nice people.

I have lived in Virginia and El Paso. I say El Paso because it isn't Texas as much as it is New Mexico. El Paso seemed to be a bit behind the times to me. This was 1982 so it may be a different place by now. I was 22 and was wanting to get as far away from home as I possibly could. 1900 miles was a bit too much, though.

Virginia was sweet. I was near the ocean on the North Carolina border. The people were so friendly there. I was a bit taken aback when I read a bumper sticker that said "Clean up the South, put a Yankee on a bus." Up until that point in my life I had never given the Civil war a second thought after high school. I had never, ever thought of myself as a Yankee. I did not know that there would be folks that were sore about Northerners. I was naive.

Fortunately for me, I didn't run into any of them. All the ones I met were as sweet as pie and would do anything for me. That is why the bumper sticker just didn't seem to fit in. From what I experienced I was welcomed with open arms. I had already been told that I had a southern accent before I moved to Virginia, and it took a while to lose it when I moved back to Ohio. 500 miles was still too far from home for me.

I recall when my two older sisters came to visit one time they laughed at me for calling an older gentleman "honey." I said that is what everybody calls everybody else here. Honey. It came as natural to me as breathing.

I am about 40 miles from my home town, now. I've been here for about 18 years. My daughter has only known this area as home. My immediate family lives close enough. I like the green of Ohio. El Paso was dry and brown. Virginia was green, but I am not an ocean person. I like fresh water lakes and trees. I may have been happier towards the western part of the state. I wonder if the people would have been as friendly or perhaps even more so. I have heard that it is a beautiful area.

Home is where the heart is. Home is where I hang my hat. Somebody did post a picture of two hats hanging on the wall. Loved ones would depict their heart, I suppose. Home is where family is. A few posted pictures of their beloved pets. It was a nice theme. There's no place like home.

The view

One of the views I had when I took my lunch walk on Thursday the 18th. I like the way the tree branches came out crisp and clear. I was trying different settings with my camera. I must look for the manual and read up on the darn thing. I have only had it for three years. You know us tech people. We read the manual as a total last resort.

I was called out to a school yesterday. As I may have mentioned before the schools are being attacked by a network worm inside our organization. Port 135 is the most common port under attack. DCOM RPC.

This may sound strange to some of you, others may know exactly what I am talking about. I have been working with some of these technology people for ten years. I am getting the impression that sometimes they are not doing all they can. For example. If a school district is hurting for money, they may begin to cut back on personnel that the administrators think are not needed. Instead of an administrator losing the secretary to their assistant they will cancel the job of the technology person's assistant. Human nature being what it is, I think that the technology person thinks to themselves, 'I'll show those bastards. I won't update some of the computers, let them get a virus. That will make them hire me more help. I'm only one person, dammit!"

Yeah. You can see how this can happen. Because as many times as I have called the district technology person to offer my help, they say "No thanks." The other schools are suffering because of it. My supervisors won't shut the school down completely. That is not allowed. It's a mumbo jumbo mixed up mess. Not everybody agrees on what is exactly happening, so no big decisions are made. A lot of people are getting frustrated. And here some of us sit with our hands tied, because we are only allowed to do so much to the schools' network. The other end of the connection is tied up in the home office, heavily protected by passwords and locked doors.

More PC's are slipping through the cracks in a school district. An example is our library person in our organization had districts order special computers to do the library software. They were setup and put in place. Most of the time the technology person in the school district wasn't aware that this computer was set up. Nobody bothered to see if an anti-virus program was installed on the machine, let alone any of the critical windows updates. Another example is the school's furnace system. The company that installed the furnaces come in and setup a computer in the boiler room. Again, nobody told the technical person. An anti-virus was not installed nor updates. The custodian may or may not have used the computer to browse the Internet. Cafeteria workers - same thing. Telephone systems - ditto. It happened in the office that I work out of. The tech person is a whiz. I notified him that he had a virus in his network. He nearly exhausted himself trying to find the damn thing. Finally he found the problem. The telephone company's computer. Sitting in a corner all by itself. Humming along nicely. Nobody checking it for critical updates. Nobody updating the anti-virus (If it even had one). Until one day it is scanned by another machine on another network and bam. In enters the worm.

Not to mention that the schools are now setting up wireless access points. Holy cow. The mess this brings. There are LAN switches, printers and digital copiers that I can access anywhere inside our network with no passwords assigned to them. I can print out a test page on about a hundred printers. Understandably this can cause some folks to think that there are ghosts in the machines. I can change the numbers of copies from 1 to 99. Of course I don't do it, but if I can do it then a high school or middle school student can do it. I tell the technology people that their equipment is vulnerable. What do I get? "Too bad. They won't hire me any help."

What a mess this all is. I can see why some school employees are getting frustrated and tired and give up. Nobody is taking responsibility. We've reached a point where you just can't scrap the computers in the schools. The phones would stop working, the cafeteria worker could not get her order to the state, the payroll would not be called into the banks. In order to work with the business world, the schools have to perform their work via computers. Banks, telcos and the state won't even consider turning back time just so the school systems can get their act together. Education has been thrust kicking and screaming into the technology age. Voters say that the schools have enough money, they won't pass any more levies. They say that management is handling the money incorrectly.

Administrators are saying that there is not enough money to keep the buses, buildings and materials up to date, let alone technology. Everyone suffers, especially the children. Then you have a few bad eggs in the classroom that have just enough knowledge to by-pass the filter and download a Trojan horse. The teacher is overwhelmed handling 35 students in their classroom. They can't monitor all of them.

Where will it end? Will it ever end? Will Microsoft ever begin creating quality software instead of continually focusing on the almighty dollar? For awhile the state government gets a clue and create programs to help. Then after four years or so, somebody else is in office and they decide that the schools don't need the money, that senior citizens or retirement homes do. All the money is then re-routed to those facilities. Or maybe they can pay the farmers more NOT to grow crops like they did for my sister's father-in-law. They paid him not to grow corn so that there would be less produce and they could increase the prices. Or, so I was told.

Which brings me to another story. My brother's ex-father-in-law (who is now long deceased) received two checks a month in retirement. Did he get it straightened out? No, he banked it. As far as I know nobody in a position to stop it ever found out. This was over 20 years ago. The man and his wife are long passed away. We are talking $900 a month for ten years or longer. I am not sure if it was from his place of employment or social security. What is that, $108,000 plus interest? I only found this out last month. I guess now that the people are dead the truth can be told. My brother is no longer a part of that family. I used to sing with the wife of the man in our church choir. May her soul (and his) rest in peace in the heaven she would sing about. Strong Christian examples, there. Yesiree.

Oh, sorry. Rant complete.

The old home

This is the old log home where my mother was born in June of 1920. Outside of Gem, WV.

Photo Friday Challenge.

Second time around

I watched Brokeback Mountain again. I had more feeling for the characters this time around. I had read the short story on-line here. I still had trouble hearing their whispered conversations, though I had my speakers on my computer turned up to 100%. Reading the short story helped me to understand what they were saying and what they were feeling.

I believe that Jack had decided to stop waiting for Ennis there the last time they were together. I think that he figured out a way to "quit" Ennis when Ennis blamed Jack for him being a 'nothing in life.' Jack told his parents about a new "friend" that he planned to bring back home to 'whip this ranch into shape.' He had decided that maybe he wasn't good for Ennis that he should just let him go. That is hard to do. Our selfish ways want that person to love us no matter what. That love conquers all. Well, it doesn't conquer all. Sometimes you have to grow up and let go so that the one you love can go and have half a chance for happiness even if it means you will never be happy without them. You have to be the stronger one and let go because you realize that they can't.

Another nice country drive

I had a job scheduled in Coshocton county today. So, I decided to go west first through Amish country and then head south. And, I came back an even longer way. Fields of green, purple flowers dotting the roadside, horses grazing, cows chewing their cud, and what was that? Oh - manure. That wonderful springtime odor floating over the fields. Fertilizer. Ugh.

Roll up the window or keep taking pictures? I drew a big breath and muttered something under my breath about being a country girl - and to get over it. I took well over 250 pictures while out and about today. I again filled up my 512MB, 256MB and little 32MB CompactFlash cards again today. (I re-charged the battery at the school I worked at). So, I came home went straight to my computer and ordered 1 4GB CompactFlash memory hard drive and one extra Lithium battery. Nuff said!

Some of the back roads are very twisty and meander through some of the prettiest Amish countryside you ever would want to see. But it also has a downside. Trucks. Truckers trying to make up some time. Maybe they are attempting to by-pass the scales on the interstate. I don't know. But they were trying to crawl up my ass today. One was so close that when I saw an Amish bakery, I didn't dare brake suddenly for fear that he would do just that. I turned at the next road and went back. There I found one of the best cream sticks I have ever eaten. Melted in my mouth. I picked up a sprinkled donut for my daughter. Delicious.

I didn't see any horse and buggies today. Maybe they don't travel on Wednesdays. I did come across a couple of farm tractors on the road. That was fine by me as it gave me an excuse to slow the car down and get some really good shoulder shots. They turn off quickly though. The photo above was taken just after I waved to a farmer hand planting some seeds in a small garden. The sunshine through the trees are some of the best, though. I can't wait to get home and download the pictures to my computer to see what I shot. Since I am always driving, I don't get to do much looking so I figure my shoulder shots will show me what I miss. Man, I am missing a lot!

Some kind of green post

Not real sure what that green post is in the middle of the photo but I liked the contrast. That was a beautiful sky. I had another beautiful day today, but the sky was just blue with a few white puffy clouds. Nothing exotic like last Thursday.

I was finally able to get outside this evening and clean out my long flower bed in the front of my patio. I think some of the thorns were over two feet tall. The earth was very soft and I was able to dig them up easily.

I will mulch it next and then plant the marigolds.

It must have dipped pretty low here last night. When I drove my daughter to school I pass a small nursery. They had taken all of their flowering plants indoors and others were covered with burlap sacks. I better watch the weather channel. I placed all of mine at the edge of the patio to grab what sunshine they can. I'll need to move them back up against the wall if it is going to get too cold tonight.

Things are starting to slow down and get real quiet at work. Most schools have only three more days left or about a week left. My co-worker is out of the office until next week having minor sinus surgery.

I've chosen a couple of summer projects to keep me going. I have invited two co-workers up to my office to re-load my Linux web server. I did it two years ago and I need a refresher course. I have heard them voice their interest in learning how to do it, so I told them to come on up, bring an extra PC if they have one lying around. Linux doesn't need much in the way of resources. Not like Windows. We will load Red Hat's version and Apache to run the web server. This way they can have their own Linux box to mess with.

I also plan to wipe my hard drive on my PC at work, and load XP. Get rid of my 2k OS. It was fun while it lasted, but I favor XP.

Another project that I hope to accomplish is changing the format on my personal photo web page. (www.mydeja-view.com/photos.htm.) I want to figure out how to do "next" and "previous" when viewing the pictures. (Laughing to myself.) I am driving my nephew crazy. He can do it in a flash and would if I asked him to, but I don't learn anything that way. I have to figure it out and I have to be able to write it myself. I don't want somebody doing it for me. What can I learn from that? I love the challenge of it.

He is busy with his new camera. He purchased a Canon PowerShot S2 (I think) but he would like to have the Canon Digital Rebel XT.

Up on the roof

rooftop

Wow. I had to revert to "Hello" to post this photo. Blogger's Add Image feature just sat and spun. This photo was taken from work last Thursday. We have a small door that opens out onto the roof. I suggested to the custodian that we place an umbrella table and chairs out there and create a sort of courtyard for lunch, but I can see that it would all blow away. Oh well.

I got slammed with another migraine today. I tried very hard to ignore it. I almost waited too long. As it was I had to retire for about two hours. The longer you wait to take the medicine the longer it takes to work. I became sick after lunch and finally broke down and took some medicine at 4 p.m. when I get off from work. But, it is gone now!

I used to keep a food journal. That is back when all the doctors and friends said it was "what you eat" that gave me my migraines. You know all the sinful foods. Alcohol, cheese, chocolate. It never made any sense. My major triggers are my menses, strong smells, sleep patterns disrupted, stress and weather changes.

The skies over Ohio this time of year are fun to photograph. Usually we have strange weather in March, but May seems to be fun for picture taking this year. Sigh. Along with the weather changes. Ugh. I do love it when a headache goes away.

Even yesterday I had a difficult headache. Would not respond to Advil. I did not take migraine medicine yesterday. Again, about nine p.m. the headache went away. The same as this evening. Not sure what that is all about. As I have stated before, I don't take a relaxing bath in the evenings, as I am a morning shower person (I need all I can to wake me up and get me going). I don't skip eating all day. (So the headache doesn't go away when I eat something.) Maybe the sun is my enemy. I want to get a good barometer and study the changes with the pressure when I get headaches. Maybe there is something about the sun setting that takes the headache away. Maybe I am an alien. Yup. I have suspected as much.

Hmm. As I re-read my post for mistakes, I am thinking maybe it was sinus all along. Perhaps I should have taken Sudafed instead of Advil yesterday.

Forgotten Iris

My Mom had purple Irises planted in our back yard. They were the deep wine purple ones though. I tend to like this color. A more lavender shade of Iris. I must get some this fall and plant them. I had forgotten how beautiful they are.

A lot of yard work this week-end and garage cleaning. And I am feeling the pain. I began Saturday morning with an old migraine reminder. The jagged aura that used to precede my attacks. I drove to the nearest gas station to get some gas for the lawn mower and I noticed while I was driving that certain spots of cars were missing. "Oh no." I thought. Not this. It must have been twenty years since I used to get the aura. I knew it when I saw it. Or didn't see it, in this case. Then the jagged lines started out the corner of my peripheral vision. Crud.

I carefully got the gas and drove back home. I didn't have any pain yet. I took a Relpax and two Advil. I put on my safety glasses and gloves and began to mow. I got really sick a couple of times feeling as if I were going to hurl, but then a beautiful cool breeze would come my way and it felt like bliss. I just went real slow and stopped a couple of times.

It is such a relief to have the medicine now. Prior to that I would have lost an entire day, possible the entire week-end. The grass would be knee high. That is the way it usually happened. Whenever I finally got the chance to do the much needed yard work, BAM - the migraine would hit me. It was such a life ruiner. The final straw came when my daughter and her friend played in the bedroom and I lay on the couch asking them not to make any noise. I had a cold wash cloth on my head, trying not to throw up and then it occurred to me. I may as well be a drunk on the couch.

I looked up a doctor the next day and hit the jackpot. I have never looked back. That was around 1997 or 1998. I have suffered from migraines since 1972. I really thought that the vision problems were over with. Twice in my life I have lost complete vision out of one eye. That is a strange incident, I want to tell you. If I closed my other eye, I could see absolutely nothing. It would only happen for about three minutes.

I also used to get the numbness in my fingers. Now I just get tingling in my head, near the crown. Like when somebody softly strokes your hair and it tingles. Kind of like that - but it isn't a good tingle. More like when your foot falls asleep and begins to wake back up tingle.

I don't see my doctor for six months since I just saw her two weeks ago. I'll probably forget to tell her about it by then.

Amish buggy on the road

This Photo Friday challenge was a tough choice for me this week. As you can tell, I am a day late. I had over 500 pictures with "The Road" in them. I finally narrowed it down to ten and then it was a toss up between this one and the one where the road flooded. Which really didn't have "the road" in the picture, so I opted for this one.

While I was sorting through my photos, I thought that maybe I should do an entire page on "The Road" on my own web site. I looked at photos until my eyeballs fell out and I figured I had enough of them and couldn't stand the thought of posting them. So, as soon as I found my eyeballs I tucked the folder back into my Images folder on my desktop and left it at that.

Instead of "the road" I need to be focusing on "the grass". I can see sunshine peeking through my curtains so I am hoping it dries the yard up enough to mow it. Both my neighbors were able to mow theirs on Thursday afternoon. I was working.

Then maybe, just maybe I can get my flowers planted. The hydrangea is waiting patiently. I still am not sure where I am going to place it.

I said "hi" to Earl yesterday as I drove by his box. He turned his head to look at me. He is always so forlorn in his dog house. He is bored to death.

Stormy skies

I had an interesting lunch hour today. I had spent all morning on the computer and my eyes were going batty. My camera was ready. I had peeked outside the window from time to time and had noticed there were some awesome clouds rolling by. So - out I went. Into the wind. I picked a perfect time. No rain but a drop here and there. Sunshine, blue skies and white puffy clouds to the North and East. Gray rolling clouds to the South and West. It was a photographer's paradise.

I sort of rescued a little beagle. I am sure he would have been fine, but I like to take a little credit. I pass his little dog house almost every day after work (depends on which way I drive home). At lunch when I went on my picture-taking escapade I walked behind the building to the back alley. As I passed his empty dog house I thought to myself "That's weird. Maybe his owner took him hunting. He is a beagle, after all."

I was taking pictures and I heard the tapping of little dog paws and looked up the road. There he was trotting along dragging a fifteen foot chain behind him. He was a little shy and afraid of me at first, so I played it cool and walked away from him. I said some nice things to him in a friendly voice, but I continued to walk away from him. He trotted towards home. I thought to myself - he is going to be okay.

I walked back past his house - I knocked on the door. Nobody home. He was barking at me. Not a mean bark. Just a "Who are you and what are you doing in my yard?"

I walked around to the alley again. He followed me. It wasn't long before I was able to step on the end of his chain.

He didn't care for it at first and I got a little muddy, but he was so friendly and so nice. I attached his chain back up the best that I could. I wrote the owner a note and stuck it on their door. I went back out to the alley and continued taking pictures.

After work I stopped at the house and spoke to the owner. The dog's name is Earl.

Not much time this evening for anything. Lots of company. Just as one left, another walked in the door. It was that kind of night.

Middle of May

Give or take a day. I am more behind every day. Hey, that reminds me of a joke my Mom used to tell.

Did you hear about the lady who backed into the meat grinder at her job? She got a little behind in her work.

Yuck. Or, maybe I read it in the Reader's Digest. I don't know anymore. I can't keep track.

The above flowers are the others waiting yet to be planted into a planter. We are getting that awful rain that soaked the Northeast. Or maybe we aren't. I haven't watched the weather channel. Usually it doesn't travel that way. I used to watch the weather channel all the time.

Oh, darn. I am not making any sense. I had an eye migraine and I took my medicine at 8:30 or so. That was 2 hours ago and my brain feels like it is shorting out. I have to keep going back and re-type all of my sentences. My fingers are moving much faster than my thoughts are.

Fireworks in my head. That is what it feels like. Sparks. Brain waves shorting out.

Anyway, I didn't get much farther on the Where I am From poem. I just can't feel the rhythm that I want to catch with it. Still need to whittle down some of the adjectives. I can't believe I just typed shittle instead of whittle. Okay spell checker - have a field day.

Vivid Orange

Still sitting in their flat because this rain just won't stop.

I have been working diligently on the "Where I'm From" template.I tend to go hog wild on the adjectives so I am trying to tone it down somewhat. I got the idea from Tabor.

I hope to have it ready by tomorrow.

Blah to Bwa-ha-ha!

Above is a poor little plastic custard dish on my scratched up scanner glass.
Go here to see how I do my "open scanner" pictures.

I use the eyedropper tool in Adobe Photoshop to pick the correct shade of black and the Paintbrush tool to cover up all the little white specks that look like lint. I colorize the dish with a prettier blue. (Image, Adjust, Color Balance).

Switching to Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I use the Effects, Reflection Effects, Pattern option to get the above image. I use Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album to crop the picture and create a three tiered frame around the image. Matching the colors as close as I can.

Back in Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I save what I have and using the Edit, Un-do on the previous photo I return to the prettier shade of blue plastic dish. Still using Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I choose Effects, Reflection Effects, Kaleidoscope to get the above image.

Above is another rendition of a different angle of the same custard cup. I also used MS Power Point to create this image. Then to top it all off, I use IrfanView to re-size the images.

I realize that I don't need to use so many programs to get the results, but that is how I work. I have to toggle back and forth between many different applications and use the feature I am most familiar with from that program. It would take me longer to learn how to do it all in one particular program than it does for me to just jump around. Besides, I make more mistakes this way and that is how a lot of interesting pictures are created!

Explode in neon blue

Maybe I should call this my masterpiece. It started out as a simple little blue dish from one of my dark scanner series. I "electrified" it.

Here is the poor little thing before I changed it.

Dogwood green

My flowering dogwood surrounded by the green of Spring. I left the photo blurry. I sharpened it, but liked it better with a little blur. This was taken on a rainy evening. They are still pretty much in bloom, some have fallen off the tree onto the grass like huge snowflakes. I dreamt about white flowers floating down from out of the sky the night before they fell. It was beautiful.

I like to do the crossword puzzle in my daily newspaper. I am currently on March 24th. I do the crossword, the cryptoquip (cryptogram) and the jumbo (jumble word scramble) puzzles. All word puzzles. I have tried a few of the sudoku's but they aren't my forte. If it is the morning, give me a good cup of hot coffee and the puzzles. If it is afternoon or evening, iced tea will suffice. And I am in heaven. Sometimes the television will be on in the background, sometimes not. This is probably why I have to watch movies a second or third time. Distraction.

In all honesty, I have been doing the crossword long enough so that I understand the author's lingo and terminology enough to work them. When I first began, I had not a clue what an Epee was and other clues and would have to peek at the next day's answers to finish solving the puzzle.

Rarely would ninety minutes or two hours go by in my house without some form of chaos or madness. Too many pets for that. For some strange reason my dog has started snapping at our cat, Precious. Since my sister has moved back into her farm house she may be getting this cat back. She can be very needy. In fairness to my dog she does give quite a few warning growls to the cat, but she isn't the brightest crayon in the box.

My cats have been enjoying the open windows and doors. They gaze out of the screens. When there are birds or squirrels in the yard they chatter. Have you heard a cat chatter? I have only heard it this year. My daughter pointed it out to me. I have two cats that chatter while watching their "prey" in the yard. Only the dog goes outside, though. Precious does run out whenever somebody leaves the door ajar for too long. She is easy to catch because she is out there rolling around on my patio or driveway.

Oooh, I purchased a hydrangea. I have been wanting one for about four years, but was hesitant because I was not sure how difficult they are to get started and to keep them growing. I have taken the plunge, and am nervous. I worry that I will kill it. Either by neglect or over watering it or something. I need to read up on the flower and get some good ideas. The gardener said she planted hers on the west side of her house and it gets more sun than not. She also stated that she pruned it too much last fall and it won't be blooming this year. Yikes. What if I do that?

But I'll tell you what. My peonies on the west side are going to be stunning again this year, but the bush on the east side is a little bit slower. It is still alive, though. The first year I didn't think it was going to make it. They were my first flowers that I planted when I purchased my house. Perennials.

I also have a flat of marigolds to plant. I am weird. I actually like the smell of marigolds. I love orange flowers. The ones I picked out are a blood red orange. I have some dirt(y) work to do.

I don't know.

This one was kind of hard for me. I find it hard to define the word Masterpiece. Anyway, that was the title for the Photo Friday Challenge.

I know that there are many forms, but usually I envision a work of art in the form of oil painting when I hear the word masterpiece.

My favorites are J.M.W. Turner, Monet (not Manet), Vermeer, Cezanne and I give a small thumbs up to Pollock.

Since hate is too strong of a word, I will just say I don't much care for Dali, van Gogh, and Picasso.

I held off ....

... as long as I could, but whew! It's out, now. A blue photo. I tried, really I did. But it was sitting there just bursting. "Cold Water" is the Indian definition of the lake above. If I give the actual name of the lake then co-workers and family and friends may find me on Google and you know what that means. No more anonymity.

coke and a smile

If Friday's challenge is ever titled "coke" I have a picture! This was at the cook-out on Sunday. I saw a photo moment and took it. I am a Pepsi drinker. Well, mostly iced tea. Pepsi once in a while and coke very rarely. I was drinking coffee at this time, that is the handle to my cup.

I was trying to remember nice neighbors. I had one in Virginia. The sweetest lady. She was a whirlwind of activity. She got up at 5:30 a.m. to clean her house and get all of that "business" out of the way so she could enjoy the rest of her day. She had six children that were all grown and had some little ones of their own.

In confidence one day she showed me a picture behind a picture in a frame that she kept. It was a man she had run away with. I didn't ask many questions. I was young and couldn't fathom how somebody could up and leave their husband with six young children. Well, okay I can see somebody leaving their spouse, but children? No way.

There was the movie ya ya sisterhood or something where that woman would go on drinking binges and leave her children. Well, so much for the nice neighbor memories. Racking my brain, nice neighbors, nice neighbors. I know I had some.

Oh, in Texas we had this nice lady that lived up above us and she would give us extra food from her dinners. White beets she called them. I called them turnips.

When I was growing up we had a really mean bachelor that lived on the one side of us. I still remember his name. Hatchie Truex. Even the name "Hatchie" drums up pictures of a nasty man. He was Mr. Wilson-like on the Dennis the Menace comic strip series. Grumpy, chubby, balding. Always working out in his garden tilling, planting. He shot birds out of our trees with a bee bee gun. One time he shot my sister's window out of her car by accident. We think it was he who shot one of my brother's hunting dogs, Clem. He survived, but the vet had to leave the bee bee in because it was too close to the heart to remove it.

We just stayed out of his yard and out of his way. I can't imagine he was ecstatic seeing a family move in with all us kids anyway.

The mean neighbor

pinkie

We have all had one. The cranky neighbor who doesn't like anything or anybody. His yard is perfect, he doesn't like children because they are messy. Heaven knows how he raised his. They are long gone and aren't coming back. Making him even crankier.

He is the type who puts up "Do NOT walk on the grass" signs in his yard. He plows out his driveway every snowfall and even when a new Mommy parks in it to carry her newborn to his neighbor's house who happens to be her baby sitter there he is when she returns to her car, trying not to slip on the small incline. Shaking his fist he bellows "Who gave you permission to park in my driveway!?" It wasn't a question really. It was a mean man marking his territory.

There is the neighbor who yells at the small child for pulling grass. Holy cow. The child and his family rents an apartment that this man just happens to mow the grass for the entire complex. What? A child can't even pull grass in their own section of yard just because he mows it?

He shoots stray cats because they bother the squirrels that he feeds.

He rants and raves when your company parks in one of his two parking spaces. And just because you only use one of your two, his family is in your other one each and every Sunday. When you bang on their door and tell them they have to move, they grumble and rev their engine. The next morning you just happen to have a flat tire.

Most of the time a nasty person like this will be married to one of the sweetest people. How does that happen?

I'm sure you have one or two memories of any such neighbor. I am lucky this time around. I have moved into a house with the nicest neighbors on both sides. Big sigh of relief.

It was a Monday

I was labeled a "holding hog" yesterday. A week or two ago, I had a dream that I had a baby boy named Justin and my family (sisters) wouldn't let me hold him. So when I got to hold my great-nephew yesterday I took off to the other side of the yard and sat on the swing with him. I hogged him all to myself. He slept the entire day. Sheesh! Fortunately for me, my sister had her fill of him for about six hours the previous evening.

The photo above is from the day after he was born. Day old baby.

What? I was wearing my rose-colored glasses.

Cat in the Hat

My niece named this fish "Cat in the Hat". It is in my sister's pond (her Mom). They have a ton of fish in there and he is the biggest. My brother-in-law retired a couple of years ago and this was his main project. To build this pond with a small bridge and waterfall. It was a lot of work.

I am tired. I spent the day at their house for a cook-out and some PC training. Mostly how to resize and send pictures. I was thrown a little bit when I looked at their computer and most of the files were dated 8-2004. After doing a little investigating here and there it dawned on me that the Dell store must have "ghosted" the image of Windows over to their "new" computer. Whew. I thought for a few minutes there that they had received a re-furbished one.

I would like to give my readers a "heads up" notice in case any of you have arachnophobia that I have some intense pictures of spiders that I may post in the next day or two. My daughter freaks out when she sees spiders and she didn't care for my pictures.

A little color

Eww. After all the black and white I needed a little color in my postings. I have a busy day ahead so I wanted to get all my e-mails caught up and blog readings done. My brother has his new pc up and running (YAY!). Even painful eye surgery didn't stop him from setting it up. Well, it did delay him for two days. Understandable enough.

One of my comments from Tabor prompted me to bring up the subject of media storage. How unfair is it that we purchased albums in the 60's and 70's and then (some of us) purchased 8-track tapes of the same albums, and then cassette tapes, and then CD's? Is anybody else getting tired of this merry-go-round? Of course, everybody is. That is why so many people are illegally downloading music.

And what of movies? How many VHS tapes do you have in your library? How many movie DVD's? Now they are speaking of the DVD format (as we purchase them today) will no longer be offered, but we will have to move into another format of Blu-Ray or HD DVD. A few of my family and friends do not own a DVD player, yet. I suppose it will be a while before we have to worry about this happening, but you know how time flies. Meanwhile, the big guns keep raking in their profits.

Adolescence

This week's Photo Friday Challenge: Adolescence. Not a child, not yet an adult. That quirky, irksome, tiresome, frustrating, stage in between.

The adjectives above describe the Mom during this stage of the adolescent's life. LOL!

Black and White and 666

Wow. I could not get this post up here fast enough. When I logged on this evening and saw that my number of posts was 666. Yikes! And I went 24 hours with that number hanging over my head. Anyway, I don't post in black and white very much and I was playing around with my dogwood blossom pictures and blasted this one a few times and there it rests.

I don't know. Am I ready for warmer weather? I have a big bee by my back door. They are in under my back porch. It is cement, so they are in under the house area where cement meets wood. I have mowed twice, now. It needs it again. I want to plant more flowers this year.

I had a meeting today where the drive takes me past one of my area lakes. I posted 99 pictures on my web page under the Photos section. It was cloudy so the first half I messed with them in Photo Shop and Paint Shop and Irfanview. The second half I was tired and just posted most of them as they came off the CompactFlash card.

My nephew informed me today that he saw a 4GB CompactFlash Type II Photo hard drive I can use in my camera. Say what? For $87. I had to change my CompactFlash cards and used up all 3 today. (I gave my 128MB to my niece). I filled up my 512, my 256 and my 32MB cards today. The 32 came with the camera. Whoo Hoo. This hard drive card is made by Seagate. Microcenter sells them and they say there is an 8GB size also. I am thinking I am going to have to bite the bullet and purchase a second battery. I did have two at one time. Lost one. :(

I was concerned about losing my pictures in case of an unfortunate event. I told my nephew that when my battery dies if I don't STOP taking pictures right then I take the chance of ruining the card and losing all the pictures I took. The card is refreshed when I format it. He said that since this new device is a hard drive card it will be more rugged. Huh. For $87, I am thinking of getting one.

Long driveway

When I travel north to visit my sister, I pass this home close to hers. I missed the front of the house which sets off the road after a long driveway and the pond that makes up the front of the yard. It follows the same theme as the dark brick and black wrought iron fencing. I thought the purple azaleas(?) and lush green grass set if off nicely. Shoulder shot trying for a sunburst through some low lying clouds.

My daughter's new 19 inch flat screen Dell monitor came today. I didn't have to sign for it. They just left it on my front porch. Eeee-yikes. She did have a 15 inch flat screen that came with her system about three years ago. I was going to get her a 17 inch, but wouldn't you know it? The 19 inch was cheaper on sale. So my system is back together. Just now goofing off I changed my monitor to 1600 x 1200 pixels. And now, 1280 x 1024. I'm messing around. I better stop.

My daughter and I watched 'The Butterfly Effect'. It was rated R and I watched it earlier when she was not at home and let her watch the later showing on Starz. I warned her of the violence in it. It was very good. It reminded me of Stand by Me a little bit. I was caught up in it. My daughter loved it. She didn't even get on the computer while it was playing. Her computer is in the living room. Poor soul. It will stay there. She wants it in her bedroom, but I won't allow it. The iSafe training I had a week ago re-enforced that reasoning.

My older brother ordered their new Dell system. I went up Sunday to help them finalize the details. They are going from a Windows 98 machine with probably less than 4 gig of hard drive space and 64MB RAM with a 15 inch full and clunky monitor to a Dell with 160 gig hard drive, 1 gig of RAM, 19 inch flat screen monitor. They have cable modem and I can't wait to see how they like it. It hasn't been delivered, yet. This is the brother that does the family tree program on the computer.

I plan to go up after it arrives to show them how to download pictures off of their camera, save them, re-size them and edit them. They ordered a photo shop program to go with it. My sister has her first grandson and she needs to create a photo album. I am thinking of Flickr, Picasa or Shutterfly. Any opinions or reviews are appreciated.

Okay, I just had to change my monitor or go get my glasses. I put it at 1024 x 768. What a sissy!

Lilacs

The beautiful aroma of lilacs explode all over Ohio this week. Everywhere I walk, on my dining room table I can smell the sweetness of Spring. And the color ain't half bad, either.

The new monitor is ordered, now I can only hope that I am home to sign for it when it is delivered. Maybe I should have had it delivered to my work office. Darn it!

I never did finish my comments on Brokeback Mountain. I was left flat, I guess. For some reason I thought that his daughter died in the movie. So, I was waiting for something to happen and "poof" it ended. In parts I was bored so I made dinner and kept looking at the television around the kitchen corner. 'Yep, they are still sitting by the lake talking.' For me that seemed to be the whole story. I told you that I couldn't half hear their conversations. I'll watch it again someday from my computer where I can hear it up close. (When I get my monitor back). I was so anxious to watch the movie that I really didn't wait until I could give it my full attention. My bad.

My daughter's suture is healing well. I clean it with diluted hydrogen peroxide. It itches her something fierce and I try to scratch it for her without causing any pain.