Cruise

I have one brother who prefers to vacation via cruise ship. I have not been on one, yet. I have had a couple of opportunities to go, but have not, yet. We wanted to get as many family members as possible, but nobody ever has the money to go at the same time as a deposit is required many months in advance.

This cruise ship was in the harbor when my nephew and I slipped down to Mallory Square to capture photos of the infamous sunset. As we waited for the sun to set a young lady ran up to the huge ship and the crowd cheered. Seems as though the entire cruise ship was waiting for her. From a distance I could see that she had long flowing blond hair. Had on a black short outfit and was drinking a fountain drink. I wondered what had held her up for an hour. That was how long between the ship sending out it's long wail to call passengers and the actual time she arrived. They had to completely re-open the doors and put the walkway down especially for her.

It was the folks on land that cheered. Not the passengers on the ship.

But, oh what a sunset. My nephew was upset at all the sailboats and other vessels that blocked the view, but I rather thought their silhouette against the backdrop of the setting sun added more character to my pictures. By the time the sun set my camera battery was depleted (as we had been out walking for seven hours straight by then) and I had to use my cell phone. I was so worried I was going to drop it in the water. I had used up all the camera battery power at the Butterfly conservatory. My group of family kept laughing at me because I kept mistakenly saying the Butter conservatory. I came back with the obligatory coffee cup (my souvenir of choice). And a tote. Of course a tote to carry all the other souvenirs I purchased for other folks.

I washed all my totes when I came home. I really need to spread them out and get a picture of all of them. The cats love them so I have to hide them so they do not sleep on them and get their cat hair all over them. Most of my totes are black. The one I purchased in Key West is a clam shell white.

Do you have a certain item that you pick up each time you vacation? My brother-in-law collects shot glasses, so I picked up one for him. He does not even drink. LOL! I picked up tee-shirts for all the grand nephews. A couple of magnets for sisters. A hat for my brother. I also grabbed a new key ring for myself. We ate at the Hard Rock cafe but their souvenir selection was quite lacking.

21 today

A few weeks back I posted a picture of a nest. An EMPTY next. Some time later I wrote that there were a couple of things I had happen in my life that I was not quite ready to talk about. I told you about the Boxer. Now about my little girl. She moved to Florida one month ago.

This photo is about two years old. She dyed her hair dark brown since then. I will see her in seven days. My nephew and I are driving. We will pick her up near Orlando and drive on to Key West. This is by no means my "dream" vacation. I do not like the heat. I am not a big "ocean" person. I like it, sure - but, if I had my choice - I would see the ocean from Nova Scotia or Maine. Better yet, a fresh water lake. Sigh.

Regardless, my daughter moved away and then I gave my Boxer away all within about a week of each other. I am still reeling from the shock. I am not near ready for ten days in Florida. Not NEAR ready.

We will have the latest iPad (4G) so I may post some photos as I get a chance. My nephew purchased a new Sony  (do not have the details with me) - but he was showing me the sensor sizes chart. Interchangeable lens, it has 1080p video, etc... He is having a blast with it. He is going to take some great shots. Me? I will have my two Canons with me (one heavy and bulky and one point-and-shoot) and my daughter will have her waterproof Olympus. I am going to check to see how deep it can function because we plan to snorkel.

I have a niece getting married in Key West on the 18th. The heat may be unbearable for me, but the company is outstanding. I am certain the view will be great as well.

Charge!

I'd like to say my life has been too busy to post. Maybe it has. I don't know. Too busy to think about it. While charging ordering gifts on-line I went ahead and ordered myself a new charger for my big camera. The battery is inside the camera, so the charger and spare battery are floating around this earth somewhere. Hopefully in my house.

So,  I will charge ahead into the holidays as each gift arrives on my doorstep. What fun to open gifts up twice, though my act is not actually opening them. :)

Finger is healing ever so slowly, work is steady and daughter moves back the end of the week. Get ready for stories about Cheech and Chong again!

Finger surgery... what finger surgery?

For some cruel reason my body decides to conjure up every pain it could think of. If it were just the procedure of removing the cyst I would not need any pain medication. My shoulder pain shows up about every two days. It wakes me up in the early morning and I can barely move as I stumble my way to the Advil bottle and recently the Vicodin. I manage to wrap the heating pad over my hurting shoulder and bury myself in my TV chair until an hour or so passes and I can finally move without sounding like an animal caught in a claw trap.

After a couple of days with the shoulder pain, my right wrist begins to feel like it had been twisted backwards and also begins to complain. I found this wrap and managed to wrap it around the wrist so I can type. What the hell is going on? I feel as if I am falling apart.

I fixed about three dishes for my family Thanksgiving get together. My daughter did come over. She did help me. She did all my dishes. She mixed the cheese ball mixture and found out how hard it was to stir it. She sliced up all of my cheese for the cheese tray.

As I pulled into my sister's house, my nephew and his wife pulled in behind. They jumped out of their van and demanded that I go into the house - they would unload my car. I protested, but caught myself. "Let them, let them." 

All day long family asked me about my finger. When I told them it was actually my shoulder, I got shoulder rub after shoulder rub. All day! The shoulder was not in it's severe pain (I cannot stand anybody or anything touching it when it hurts like that) but during it's down time, I can bear the rubbing.

I was a hit with the new baby. He really likes me. I "hogged" him.  I had lots to be thankful for.

There is a baby shower on Sunday. I have to make 50of these:

Aren't they adorable? Except mine will have blue ribbons of course. I had hoped that we could get a start on them Thanksgiving day, but it did not happen. You cut out the bottom of a Styrofoam cup (my apologies for not being very green, here), cut slits to create the tongue, punch holes and begin with the ribbons.

I am not exactly certain how I am going to tie those little bows, but I will figure it out.

So, I woke up this morning and not only does my arm hurt - but my legs would not move without significant pain. I attribute this to walking around the mall yesterday (to find cute baby stuff for the shower) and walking around two grocery stores. I had my cart full at the first one and needed help finding two items. There was no help to be found. I finally tracked down a guy stocking shelves. He was rude and just kept telling me "We don't carry that!" I returned all my items and walked out of that store and drove to another where not only did I find all my items, I saw lots of workers in the store that were more than happy to give me help.

I had banned that first store for five years before for a very similar reason. I will probably stay away another five years again.

I did manage to make it through the day without beating up any grandfathers. Good Gawd!

This morning I stumbled out of bed, swallowed Advil and Vicodin - wrapped myself in my heating pad and my TV chair. It took a good hour but I was finally able to get up and get out to walk the dogs. The strange thing is, after the meds wear off, I do not have as much pain. I may require only a couple of Advil later - but nothing like the pain when I first wake up. Of course, I probably just jinxed it.

Well, my daughter is out of town this week-end and my sisters live too far away. I am on my own. I have a sinkful of dirty dishes (cannot get my finger wet) so I will be using my leaking dish washer. Oh, well.

Time to go and look for my glue gun. I found one of my camera battery chargers and have taken pics, but my usb ports all fried in my computer months ago, so I cannot download them, whereas with my phone I can e-mail them to myself and get them on here.

Maybe Santa will bring me a new USB card?

Family Fun day

Going to a vineyard today with family for some fall fun. I have not been here before, so this will be a first for me. I am looking forward to the above machine shooting pumpkins at a van out in the cornfield. The kids (grand nieces and nephews, now) will be looking forward to the car eating mechanical dinosaur.

I know you are tired of hearing me say it (or seeing me print it) and I am tired of saying (typing) it: I still can't find my stupid camera battery charger. I want to take pictures but yet I am also free from the task of hanging that thing around my neck and trying to get good pics. Without the camera I can just enjoy myself. But still... I want pictures to post and to enjoy later.

I found it

I finally found my Nook. It had been missing since shortly after the floor was put in - the end of June. What can I say? I am domestically challenged.

I have transferred quite a few pdf files over so that I can read them when I am away from the computer. I used to print them out (gasp!).

Yes, they are all boring work-related files.

Okay, so that makes my spare laptop from work (left it at a remote school - got it back), my nook. Now, I need to locate my battery charger for my camera. Sigh. Always the stupid battery charger with me!

Tired and still....nothing

I'm more or less melting just like the rest of you in this dreadful heat wave. Sticking close to the A/C indoors and hoping above all else that the unit does not falter. I was away visiting daughter yesterday afternoon and saw my stove light blinking when I came home. It did rain and storm a bit where I was at but we did not lose power there. 

I did need to boot my computer this morning and the system sounds like a jet engine. I have not had the motivation to take any photos. This one was taken in May in a mirror at work. I work by myself now in the office and I love it. My co-worker was a real nut case. I do not miss her one iota. I am sort of a loner, anyway.

I can see my camera from where I am sitting but have no idea where the battery charger is located. Canon cameras are mostly black and when the sun is this hot, you don't want anything black outside. 

My big dogs got their kennel cough (Bordetella) vaccinations yesterday. Cheech and Chong go in for theirs this Friday. I am boarding them somewhere new this year while we go to our family reunion in WV. They also were behind on distemper so they got their shot for that, also. Their papers are now ready for the new boarders.

We are going to vote on having the reunion on a Saturday next year. So many folks travel and "have" to be back to work Monday morning and they leave early on Sunday. I take both Monday and Tuesday off. Monday for traveling back home and Tuesday for resting. Yep. Every year I need to rest from my break. I do more work in one day of "vacation" than I do all week at work. That is probably because my job is very little physical activity anymore. 

I do have 10 fiber switches to install this summer/fall. They are about the size of...what? Bigger and much heavier than a VCR - maybe a heavy digital box that goes with your hi def TV? Something like that. I will try to remember to take pics.

I did get to spend some time with Cheech and Chong yesterday and it might be my imagination but I swear their eyes are imploring me to take them home. :(  It haunts me. Belle will be a huge German Shepherd and currently is their size. I think they realize that soon she is going to be the big Alpha dog in that house.

Since I was out and about yesterday that leaves today to try to clean up my house. I can find a phobia for fear of cleaning, but they mean bathing. I do not have THAT fear! Thank God! I do have phono/photo/ and osmo phobias. I feel that I am hypersensitive to sounds/light and smells.

There is a fear of the color of purple? Really?

Panorama

I didn't even know my cell phone camera could do this. I was relaxing out in the back yard a few days ago and was messing with my cell phone and the camera. Left to right:  the very edge of my patio. My neighbor's duplex (two very sweet ladies live in them). My little gray house (with all the garbage cans - yes I am trashy). The road where you can see the duplex across the street. My other neighbor's house - two story gray (also super nice people, I am blessed!). The huge pine tree that provides us beautiful shade during the hot summer months. The little white house on the other side of my neighbor's house and my neighbor's garage with the orange/red wheel barrel leaning up against it.

Where in the hell are my dogs?

Fishing on the lake

In mid may I captured this shot on the larger lake in my area. I had my camera about five days and was still messing around. My nephew explained to me if I zoomed in farther than 35mm I was just cropping the shot with the camera and I was better off to turn the digital zoom off and crop the picture with a software program.

He took a lot of pictures Sunday at a family cook-out and he just loves the camera. If it gets his approval, then I feel I made the right choice. About three people wanted to know where, what kind and how much the camera was.

I am much too lazy for an SLR and I just want to have fun with the camera without seriously getting into the technical details of the machine and the processing. I love the resulting images of the SLR and maybe some day when I feel more comfortable with finances and shooting I can go that route.

A little bit closer now

The title to this post is kind of a quote in a Little Richard's song "You Make Me Want to Shout!" A close up of an ant on one of my peony buds. I hope to improve with this camera as the week unfolds but I am hearing the thunder rumbling over my house as I type. Sigh. Here comes the rain again. Another line from a song. The Eurythmics.

Every time I go to get a drink of my coffee this morning the cup is empty. What is up with that? Who is drinking this coffee?

Droplets

A dewy spider web on a bush in front of my house.

It is early Friday morning. I have been up since 3:30. I took the dogs out and then read e-mails, etc... Then I created a birthday list to give to family and friends. We do that. We create a list (with pictures). It works well for us. This year I want hanging flower baskets, lawn decorations and cookware (to replace broken or lost stuff). It is pretty bad when the pictures I choose off the Internet take me to a shopping site that lists a dutch oven for $278 and a lamp for $280. When did I get such expensive tastes? No, I don't want another lamp. I must have 20 around here. I love lamps.

I signed out about 5 books from the library. Vacation next week. It is supposed to be a working around the house vacation. I need to pull everything out of my living room and dining room area to make ready for a new floor. What do you want to bet that the books get read and the work does not get done? Heh, heh. I at least hope to be able to mow the lawn. It looks as if we will have a break from the rain this week-end. I could have started that last night but I was at the end of a three day headache. One that was NOT responding to OTC medication and I was not taking another prescription migraine pill.

Maybe I'll get a chance to check out the other blog sites this coming week and set up a back-up blog to use in case of another outage that blogger experienced. You can read about it here:  http://buzz.blogger.com/.

I should write about good companies I have had experience with also - not just the negative. For the most part, Verizon had great service. This one incident really left a scar on me, though.

For an example of great customer service, let me share this story with you. I have been looking at cameras for about 2 years, now. I am very happy with the Canon brand. The only two features I had trouble with were the delay in shooting and the letters wore off the selection button on top of the unit. I bought a Power Shot in 2003 5.1mp. It has served me very well.

I was watching prices closely and when Sears put their Power Shot SX30 on sale I went to snap it up. While the sales lady was in the back looking for my camera I browsed the stereo systems. I have an old CD player/radio sitting on my patio. It is filled with dust and debris because it has sat out there every summer since I moved in (2002). Nobody has ever bothered it. I have been meaning to replace it. 

There sat a beautiful Sony CD/mp3 player with an iPod connection and a sub woofer. The sales lady came back with my camera and we took it out of the box and were going over the details - it has this, this and that. I noticed there was no memory card included. I asked her if she could throw one in for free. She said that would be the other lady's decision. The other sales lady came over and I showed her the memory card from my daughter's camera and explained that it would not work in this new camera. Could she throw in an SD memory card with the camera? "No" she said. "I can't do that?" I said "How about if I also purchase that Sony stereo right there? I pointed to the stereo I  had been looking at. She quipped back "Will an 8 gig card be okay?"

LOL! Verizon - take note! Now THAT is customer service!

Oh. Between you, me and the barn door (or fence post) - I think my old camera still takes better macro pictures but this could be because I have not had time to properly use or experiment with the new one. 14.1mp with 35mm zoom. I have no idea if I have discovered how to use the macro feature or not. I can't seem to find it to turn that on. I keep pressing the macro button but I don't see the little tulip appear on the screen like I did with the old camera. My dogs have already chewed up a piece of plastic that covers the top flash holder. Grrrr! 

The last four pictures or so of my posts have been from the new camera. I am still learning. I think it was 2 years before I really got the hang of the older one but I didn't take the time at first to play with it. I have been practicing with this one almost every day. This upcoming week I hope to read the on-line manual and I plan to take the time to get my tripod out and go to a lake or two.

Oh and by the way...just so you know. At 50 years old I finally have the chutzpah to ask for free things like the memory card. In my younger days I never bartered, bickered, complained or asked for anything. Sigh. Maybe new tricks can be taught to old dogs.

Need to make one of these

Maybe I will make this one for Easter. We travel a bit farther this year than usual. I am to make a cheese ball and bring a vegetable tray. Easy food to transport.

I have not been cooking very much this week. Been crazy busy. I did make some steak and potatoes and chicken tenders. I put too much cayenne pepper in the breading for the chicken. Whoo! A bit hot.

I also seem to be out of the habit of taking pictures. I need to get back into that hobby again. I love to take pictures and see them when I transfer them to the computer. I would love a new camera, but I don't think that is feasible during this sorry economical time.

We went to a benefit dinner today. Spaghetti. My stomach has been hurting this evening.  Not sure what that is from. They had delicious pumpkin cheesecake for dessert from Bob Evans. Simply delicious. We won two gift baskets. A doggie one (surprise) and a movie one. Another surprise. My daughter was trying to win the golf one for her beau.

I tried to see the moon tonight but there were too many clouds. I'll take the big dogs out one more time. Maybe I can catch a glimpse of it this time.

It's a food day

Frying bacon in  a pan this morning. I got very little sleep last night again. As usual. I have a big day today. I am making calico beans and stuffed shells and taking them to a double birthday party.

That bacon smells wonderful! And, I don't care much for bacon. The pets are going insane with the smell. I wish I had lettuce and tomato.

The camera battery is charged. I will take pictures unless I get strapped for time and forget.

I did end up going to dinner Friday night. That makes an appt. Wednesday, dinner out with the girls from work on Thursday. Dinner with sisters on Friday, b'day party with my previous work place friends on Saturday. And a big double birthday party out of town today.

Linux? -  I'll catch ya later!

Prince Caspian?

No. My daughter - again.
See the movie image here.

Goofy fun

A while back I downloaded a free app to my cell phone called Fun pics. You choose a picture (they have the face cut out) - aim your camera at your subject, line their face up in the little area and click. I have about a dozen of these with different characters. This one is my daughter in the infamous Yoda character.

Where's the beef?

I made this chuck roast yesterday after reading about CheerstoHappy's version from her December 16th. post. Hers looked so good and I had a hankerin' for something rich and saucy. My meal looks a little lost in this dish (I have requested that Santa bring me a heavy duty dutch oven). It was delicious. I left the chuck roast in the crock pot on low all day. When I came home, I added onion, potatoes and carrots and moved it to this baking dish and baked it in the oven at 350 for an hour. The aroma was enough to make you swoon. I get to experience the effects of the smells because I go outside to walk the dogs and when I returned the smell hit me head on.

The down side to this is if a pet has had an accident. That smell can knock you off your feet, too.

Woke up late this morning (for me) and have a cottony feeling inside my head and feel as if I am on the verge of a headache. I am getting pain around the eyes and back on the left side of the head. The coffee is making me sick to my stomach (also a sign of an impending headache). I am so thankful for my medication. I have experienced migraines since I was twelve years old. Before that I had severe headaches. I believe this is from sleeping in my Mom's room from 8 to 11 years old. Every morning I was awoken about 4 or 5 a.m. when she lit her first cigarette. The smoke was heavy in the bedroom and just wafted over to me. I hate cigarette smoke to this day. At 12 I moved into my sisters' bedroom.

Well, I am baking today. I managed puppy chow last evening and started the peanut butter blossoms. I will finish those today. I hope to make cranberry nut bread (cannot find the recipe) and with any luck I can knock out another batch of chocolate chip or M&M cookies. Then I will start the food for tonight. We are having creamed chicken sandwiches (requested by my niece for every Christmas eve), BBQ ham sandwiches (for me), meatball appetizers, and a cheese ball/tray with meat and crackers.

I'll take pictures if I can find my camera's battery charger. Well, you should know me by now. I lose everything!

Lit tree

Only the lights. Still. Nothing else. I have been giving it water like crazy. The kids are responsible for decorations this year. Sigh. I like how this cell phone feature "Polaroid" makes the photo look 30 years old. I think my camera is in the trunk of my car. I took pictures at our big family dinner on the 11th, and have pictures but have forgotten to get the camera out each time. Wait. I unloaded groceries on Sunday. I would have picked up the camera if it were in the trunk. Then, where is it? Aw, jeez. Now I have to go look for it.

I have the week off from work for vacation. There are about 3 problems that I am still trying to take care of remotely from home. They concern the filter. I may try one more thing and then let everything go until I return to the office on the 20th.

The filter may die by then.

Do you have children in school? If you did,  how would you feel about their Internet usage and the filter? Would you be upset if they could play games or access facebook in the classroom? How about reading/writing blogs while in the classroom?  Porn is easy. It is blocked with NO exceptions. Proxies are blocked with NO exceptions. 

Youtube, facebook, games, shopping, gambling - a lot of other categories are left up to the district. The thorn in my side (this month) is a middle school has three games housed on their web page. We are required to categorize all our school web pages as "education" and all my districts allow this category to pass. If they did not, it would be kind of difficult for them. But, this lets those 3 games show up under the category "education" and all the schools in my organization's network can access the 3 games. I have only one district complaining (but they are relentless). I am working with my filter company (they are located on the west coast and I am on the east) but their resolution has not worked. I may have misunderstood and set it up incorrectly.

I have never heard of a parent wanting a list of blocked categories for their district. I have wanted to go to districts and hold a meeting with the parents to explain how the filter works in the districts but I wonder if any parent is even interested. 

Do they think that this technology is without errors?

Warmth

This is a photo taken during my tour of the Warthers' Museum Christmas tree display. I noticed a lot more of the displays added features other than the tree this year. I don't show the tree in this photograph, but the entire display is included when you purchase the tree. We peeked under the tablecloth. It was a mock plywood table under there. :)

I have not been posting much. I don't feel very well this morning and I have been doing a lot of planning. My family has over 30 showing up for a dinner at a restaurant on Saturday evening. This is possibly our fourth annual Christmas get together. Maybe five? I'll have to check back in my blog. This is the most we have ever had show (if they all show and the weather co-operates). I plan activities for adults and children. The restaurant puts us in their back room. We grow every year as more and more family members say to themselves "I'm not missing this year!" We get some extra children in now and then and that is fine by me. 

Sadly, two members will be absent this year (not because of death). Some relationships do not work out. I'll have my camera. I'll have my cell phone also for pics. My daughter cannot find her camera. Hmmm... apple falling... and the tree...

Oh, yeah. It's Pearl Harbor day. Or "Attack on Pearl Harbor" day. What is it? - 69 years ago? Not many people even think of the day anymore. I was reading up on it yesterday in wikipedia. Very interesting. I have not seen the movie. I may catch it someday on television. Growing up I didn't hear many details. Just that Japan attacked us out of the blue. Since I did not know the story behind their provocation I just thought "What the hell? Who did they think they were?"  There is motive behind everything, usually greed. The tension had been building for years.

War kind of reminds me of the old Westerns on TV. You see all the cowboys sitting or standing around in the saloon. A brawl breaks out. A few guys start swinging punches and pieces of the tables and chairs go flying. Some cowboys continue to lean against the bar minding their own business. It isn't their fight, they do not want to get involved. Then a beer bottle or a piece of table leg hits them in the back of the head. Hey! Now, it's getting personal! Then they enter the fight. And it goes on and on and on.

Spice of Life

I made a quick run out to the Am!sh country yesterday to stock up on some goodies for the upcoming holidays. I may give some as gifts and I may use them for get togethers. I purchased about five of each of the jars shown above. The hot pepper jelly is not near as hot as I'd like it to be, but that may work for some folks who don't like it all that hot. There is sweet & hot mustard and hot relish mustard and peanut butter spread (which I don't happen to like, but many do) and the various mustards I use with my cheese and meat tray for folks to dip their trail bologna into.

And, I stock up on cream cheese when it is on sale. I don't purchase too far ahead because I do not like it after I have frozen it. It just does not work well in the recipes after it has been frozen.

And, cheese. I purchased about five blocks of cheese. Farmer, butter, jumpin' jack, baby Swiss and mild Colby. I am just hoping that the cheese can last until the Thanksgiving holiday at least. (wink, wink).

As usual the store was packed full. It is a small store and very crowded. There are bulk candies and bulk flour, noodles and other baking goods. Spices galore. All in huge amounts. I also try not to purchase too much of a spice at one time because I feel it also goes stale.

I made plans to see Secretariat today. I hope it is worth it. After, I am going to sister 1949's house. She fell and broke her wrist. Sister 1944 is meeting me there. We are going to do dishes etc... to help out. 

I saw a few snow flurries while out walking the dogs yesterday early morning. They were pretty to look at while under the street lights but I know the havoc they will bring. Bittersweet feelings. My boxer's sweater is too hard to get on him. It fits too tight. While at the boarding place he chewed through his harness. I just got him a collar this time. He doesn't care for it, but he will have to adjust. He tries to move away from the leash leaning on him as I walk him so he ends up walking sideways most of the time. It is kind of funny.

Well, I used my extra hour today in my sleep, so I better get a shower and get crackin'. Making a new cheese ball today with dried beef, green onions, cream cheese.... I'll get my camera out and take pics. The above pic was taken with my phone and I am not real good at it yet. I did download some retro camera features that I am playing with. Here is one looking at the skyline sitting in my car  from across the store. I think I used the "toy camera" feature for this one.

On my daily walk

And I thought walking under a ladder was bad luck. Just happened to look up while walking the dogs on Saturday and this is what I saw. Not real close to my house, but just around the corner. I took the dogs home, got my camera and came back for a shot. Still shooting with my daughter's camera, so I don't have it mastered, yet.

I like that my daughters' camera has the "shaky hand" feature, but if you want to zoom in real close you lose that ability. I zoomed this one and I got a slight blur with the pic. They look like mud wasps to me.