2-28-2006 BROKEN!!!

ACK! EGAD! GUFFAW!
My home PC has decided I can no longer surf blog pages. This started yesterday and has gotten significantly worse. The PC will auto-reboot on Tracey's page or Trée's page before anything actually loads. System resource problems I think.
I'm going to try to work on it but please don't freak. I'm not ignoring you guys. I seem to be able to see my own for the moment so I'll have to do the best I can. :(
So sorry.
Time for the old FORMAT C:/!

2-28-2006

Baby Kiwi

Another National Geographic Pic. Doesn't he look scared to death? Poor little thing.
What he doesn't know is that he's a very rare and special creature. He just feels confused and afraid but he's really very unique and very loved.

I think we're all exactly that way. We're all just muddling by and doing the best we can. We're confused and self-conscious and suffering, but we're all so very special and unique. (some people are a little more "special" than others, hah!)

Happy Tuesday.

2-27-2006

"Imagination was given to us to compensate for what we are not; a sense of humor was given to us to console us for what we are."

-Mark McGinnis

2-26-2006 God

Okay, question, I say to Morrie. His bony fingers hold his glasses across his chest, which rises and falls with each labored breath.
"What's the question" he says.
Remember the Book of Job?
"From the Bible?"
Right. Job is a good man, but God makes him suffer. To test his faith.
"I remember"
Takes away evrything he has, his house, his money, his family...
"His health."
Makes him sick.
"To test his faith."
Right. To test his faith. So, I'm wondering...
"What are you wondering?"
What you think about that?
Morrie coughs violently. His hands quiver as he drops them by his side.
"I think," he says, smiling, "God overdid it."

Tuesday's With Morrie by Mitch Albom

2-24-2006 Sunset

Friday is sort of the "sunset" of the week isn't it?

That would make Saturday a bright new morning, right?

Click here and fill your day with laughter. Calvin and Hobbes

Love and Hugs and Happy Sunset.

2-23-06 The song is stuck in my head....

"Remember, we are eternal...


...all this pain is an illusion."

2-22-2006

This is my version of Christa's "Leaf".

Her's is enormously better but I can only do so much with fractalware.
Let's just call mine a "tribute".

(p.s.) If you haven't already, please comment in the post below. We need more songs for our "Road Trip" album. :)~

2-21-06 Tagged by a Christa

(and me wihtout a fractal to be found.)

I got tagged to list 7 songs that I'm currently into.
Here's the thing about that: I'm a lyrics person. I learn songs so I can sing (badly) along with things that relate to my situation....whatever that may be at the time. I also obsess. That is to say that I will play the same song for days at a time.

Having said that, I did this back exercise back in August 2005 and wow what a difference 6 months can make.
Here's the August list: 10 Songs

Today's list: (there will be a quiz at the end)

1. Tool - Parabola
"This body holding me
reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember; we are eternal,
all this pain is an illusion."

2. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (the whole album, yes it's cheating)
"Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be."

3. John Mayer - Victoria
"I might not be seeing him soon"

4. John Mayer - Quiet
"Somehow I can't seem to find The quiet inside my mind"

5. Staind - Outside
"I can see through you
See your true colors
'Cause inside you're ugly
You're ugly like me"

6. Triumph - Killing Time
"Time was slipping away,
Passing us by, now I could cry
Cause it's gone. Gone forever my friend
And it won't come again;
It's moved on and left us behind..."

7. Dave Matthews - The Dreaming Tree
"She thinks when she was small
There on her father's knee
How he had promised her,
"You'll always be my baby."
"Daddy come quick,
The dreaming tree has died
I can't find my way home
There is no place to hide
The dreaming tree has died."

Ok - so that wasn't the most encouraging, enlightening list. It's acutally pretty good proof that I should seek a psychiatrist soon. :)
Maybe music is therapy. Let's go with that for now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now I'm going to change the tag some. This tag is for anyone who took the time to read all that stuff up there. Don't post on your website, just post your tag in my comments. I'll add them all up.

TAG: What is the best "road trip" song?
I'll start and we'll make a list again.

1. Radar Love - by Golden Earring

2-20-2006 Home again

“"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.”

Cake batter is a good thing...but red-velvet cake batter on your two year old looks a bit odd.


And then there's Hot Wheels.


Unfortunately, the was so much going on that I didn't get much in the way of pics. Still..it was a great party with lots of family and friends.
Happy Monday all.

2-17-2006 Truckin

You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin' and you want to settle down.
I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin',
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been.

Truckin', I'm a goin' home. Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin' on.

It was hard not to post that whole song. I love every verse of it. Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia. There was a man who really got it.

Anywho...I'm driving down to Houston to see the little sprout. He's having a birthday and I'm going to be his favorite aunt...someday...when he can say my name. Hah. (Oooo....there will be new piccies when I get back. Yay!)

Everyone have a wonderful weekend full of love and fun. If it's going to be as cold where you are as it is here, you'd better get yourself a snuggle-bunny. That goes for you too Linny - even if it's just a gal-pal and a good chick-flick. (how many hyphenated words can I put in one paragraph?)

Love to all of you.
Remember....the moon I'm looking at every night is the same one you see...even if you're half a world away. :) I'll be thinking of you and hopeing you're well.

2-16-06

Our list:
Home
Love
Soulmate
Sexy
Acceptance
Good Luck
Free Hand
Anytime
Got your back
Friend

These are words that give peace. These are some of the words we use to
shine our light into the darknes of other people's worlds.

My confession:
I have been terribly internal these past 7 weeks. Yesterday was the first time someone outside of my family truly needed some of those words from me. I find it odd that I had to summon up the courage to speak to her...as if it were "work".
Regardless, I did talk to her. I did find compassion and empathy but it was littered with "get over it" in my mind. That's just not like me.
"HOPE"
That's a very very important word. THAT must be given from our light of compassion to those suffering.
I just don't know where I stand with that word right now. It is as if the danged thing needs to be drug from the back of the closet and dusted off...shined even. It is not that I don't have hope, it just seems tarnished.

Ah well.
"Dear Jess, you WILL get into a good college. Not the one you wanted but you are a brilliant child. One reject letter just means your fate lies elsewhere. Where you go, you will find you were meant to be.
Acceptance will come soon enough."

Happy Thursday all.

As heavy as stone and as blue as I go...



I was just wondering if you'd come along
Hold up my head when my head won't hold on

Dave Matthews ~ The Stone



Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.
-Buddha

2-14-06 Valentines and a bunch of signs

Happy Valentine's Day all. I hope you find flowers or chocolates or happy cards. If not, go buy them yourself tomorrow. They'll be half price.

Here is our fractal o' the day. I don't know what it is but it looked pretty cool so I kept it. Is it a box of abandoned cards? Is it wooden planks of a door?
You tell me.


Now...about the "signs" part.
I am going to Houston on Friday (took the day off) for my nephew's 2nd birthday part.
I am excited...and yesterday I learned I am also apprehensive.
Who wouldn't be? I'll be driving into an emotional state. That might be a very hard thing to drive back out of.
Here are the signs though:
1) I searched everywhere to find the gift I want to get him and ended up settling on books. (I just wanted sheets and blankets with the moon on them. Why is that so hard?)

2) THIS happened on my not old car. It's not the gas cap or any of the fluids. I checked. The belts and air filter are new. Dad was a mechanic. I think he's trying to tell me not to go to Houston. I'm sure the thing needs a tune up but I'm not financially in that place. (and what is "soon"? How generic is that? "Service Soon"....That thing has a computer on it. Why can't it just say "Replace Spark Plug Now?")

3) My best friend said "I don't think you should go. You're not ready." to which I replied "It isn't about me. We're still a family and it's entirely about US."

4) The weather is now calling for "wintry mix" Friday/Sat'day/Sunday. I know how dumb people get here when it rains...heaven forbid snows. I have "Freewayphobia" when the sun's out.

So all these things are adding up and I keep getting more apprehensive about going.
And then I think I'm LOOKING for signs. You know...if you look you'll find them.
Am I looking for excuses?

I'm mailing the gifts tomorrow just to be safe. I honestly do not know what to do now.
(and for the record, flying isn't an option just like a tune-up isn't an option)

Happy Tuesday all. Happy Valentine's Day if you're with someone you love.

2-13-06

Let's all laugh like this today.



That's a good laugh! Straight from the heart and with reckless abandon.
There probably isn't much better in this whole world than a child this young finding YOU funny.

"Okay", he says. "Now it's your turn."

2-11-2006

Thank you dear Tracey for not making me go to bed with one line of a song stuck in my head and no idea the rest.
You saved me from a great big "I hate it when that happens.". :D

Thank you my dearest Trée for moonlight and frogs and love in abundance. There is nothing and no one like you in this world.

For all of you:
"IF" by Bread
If a picture paints a thousand words,
Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show the you I've come to know.
If a face could launch a thousand ships,
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you,
You're all that's left me too.
And when my love for life is running dry,
You come and pour yourself on me.

If a man could be two places at one time,
I'd be with you.
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
I'd spend the end with you.
And when the world was through,
Then one by one the stars would all go out,
Then you and I would simply fly away

2-10-06 Friday again

Friday is my quick day. I have to be at work early so I have little time to post or catch up.

Here's all I've got to give at the moment.


and furthermore:


Now, I have a song stuck in my head. Someone please tell me the name of it or at least the artist. I can only get as far as one line:

"If a face could launch a thousand ships, then where am I to go?"
(think late 70s ballad)

Love to you all and happy/short Friday. (unless you're on a beach somewhere...then Happy incredibly long Friday.)

2-9-06 A different circle

There was once a whole, made of two halves.
Each half balanced the other.
Balance was necessary, in action, emotion, reason...

And now there is only one half.
One half searching for balance but tilting, lilting.
One half with nothing but extremes.
One half overwhelmed with emotion
over-required of action
hanging tightly to slipping reason.

1-8-06

I'm having a difficult time putting thought into words today.
To be fair, it isn't even 7a.m. yet so I guess I shouldn't expect much.

Anyway, Trée do you remember one of your posts from a year or so ago that asked something like "Can you last a day without thinking ill of anyone."
Of course, it sounded much more eloquent when you said it.
The point is that I remember it and I've gotten way off that track and I'm working hard to get back to it.

I find it interesting that I am one thing on this blog and slightly another in "reality". I think you all see more of me than the outward world. Isn't that odd?
But I have changed in the last year. There was a time when I was so very empathetic to everyone around me that it actually made me ill from worry. I had to learn to moderate that...but in doing so I slipped a bit too far.
Someone I know told me of a tragedy that befell her many years ago. She is merely an acquaintance, and the telling was not in response to anything I said...she just put it out there. I suppose the anniversary of the event is coming up.
I find her to be a very negative person overall...constantly seeking "the dirt" on someone or sharing reasons to be angry.
I have HUGE walls up when she comes around.
Regardless, I would have shown some sort of sympathy regarding her tragedy. Instead I just got offended. "Too much information" I thought.
And then I thought "what a horrible thing for me to think".
She's a nice girl...just doing the best she can. She searches for something/someone to be mad about because it fills some kind of need in her.

I won't do it again. I will care instead.

I think, in trying to become a better person, I have to ask myself "Who do I NOT want to be?"
I do not want to be uncaring.
I do not want to be negative.
I do not want to be unkind.

What do you not want to be?

1-7-06 The Circle

Funny how things just keep coming back around in our lives.
Better if they come around and you give them to someone else.

I have a book of poems that I wrote when I was a child.
This is not one of them.

I remember writing this verse from a song by Billy Squire. I heard it yesterday and I was suddenly that child again.

Time for all and all in time

We slip beyond the borderline

of who we are

and where we long to be.

It seemed relevant somehow. I'm not really sure how.
Maybe it is just the comfort of familiar emotion.

On that note: My sister's in-laws have been profoundly comforting in the past 4 months...as our lives changed so drastically.
I received a card from her yesterday. I was quite surprised by it but mostly I was overwhelmed at the compassion and empathy she gives so freely.
In that card she included a poem that she wrote when she was a teenager. She wrote it just after her father died. He went to work one day and never came home. He was killed on the job.
How very kind of her to share something so deeply emotional.

What an awful thing it must have been to lose him in what seemed like a normal day. What a terrible surpirse. I think of all the others who must have gone through the same thing. (car wrecks, 9/11, soldiers, heart attacks...)
I suppose I was lucky. I didn't lose him as a child and I we did get to say goodbye...well, not actually goodbye...just "No matter what happens, I love you."
I think I want to say that to everyone now.

"No matter what happens, I love you."

1-6-06

Needing New:
I think it is a cleansing thing that has come over me. I recall my freind doing this during her divorce. Suddenly nothing seems to have any real importance. Material things are....clutter.

I am cleaning.
Well, actually I am throwing away.
I am emptying cabinets and filling garbage bags.
It seems very easy to look at something now and say "This thing I can do without. This thing has no meaning. This thing has no value."
It seems that I want to narrow my life down to only that which has meaning, memory or relevance.
No more half-empty shampoo bottles that I'll need one day. No more off-color makeup sitting in a drawer because I might run out of the right color.
No more curio cabinet full of trinkets to pretty up the place. It's all just clutter.
As for reading 10% of the books I own...nope. If it hasn't been read I'm selling it off. I don't want 100 books with 100 regrets of not ever having taken the time.
On the same note, I'm reading 5 books at once now so I'm not real sure how the math works out on that one. hah

Tag:
10 things to do before I die:
1. Let them know I love them.
2. Let them know I love them.
3. Let them know I love them.
4. Let them know I love them.
5. Let them know I love them.
6. Let them know I love them.
etc.
That's all that matters. If I get to go to Italy someday, great. If not...it changes nothing.

I threw away the list of things to do before I die. I gave up my regrets.
I'm going to try to work harder on the list above.

Superbowl Sunday

Well, since we can get back into the blog-o-sphere, I've tidied up a bit. I think it all works again. (minor enhancements included)
The best news is that I am completely archived. That's good because I really needed to keep a record of things.

There are some edits I haven't bothered to finish today. "Open Vents" still shows every comment on the main page. I'm not sure I'll change that but I would like to add a graphic here and there.
I'd like to add a few other graphics about the place but I haven't found the right ones yet. I guess it's always a work in progress anyway, huh?

I do hope you all have a good Superbowl Sunday. (Christa, I suppose this day has no significance where you are, huh?)
Superbowl Sunday, to me, only means that the hubby will be entirely distracted all day and I can get some things done. Oh, and fun commercials too.

I'm seeing "word verification" at the bottom of my "Create Post" box. Do you suppose that's what bombed our connections last night? Why should I have to verify what I logged in already to enter? Hmmmm. Are spammers now able to POST on our blogs?
What a world.

Love to all of you. I hope you have a great day. I'll be back this evening to check in with you all.
Here's wishing you beer, chips, bar-b-que and a nap on the couch.

back up

So I'm trying to backup the blog per the blogger instructions and I don't like the results.
Following the instructions I get nothing but a page of text.

I've decided it would be more productive to edit the source code to show all comments.
I can set the archiving to 999days using blogger's settings - and thus...see everything. Then save as should (maybe) work.

Problem is, I can't figure out what to change in the source code to show all comments.
The Blogger backup says to write over your entire template with this:
<--- -blogger>
AUTHOR: -$BlogItemAuthor$>
DATE: -$BlogItemDateTime$>
-----
BODY:
-$BlogItemBody$>
--------
-blogitemcommentsenabled>
-blogitemcomments>
COMMENT-AUTHOR:<$BlogCommentAuthor$>
COMMENT-DATE:<$BlogCommentDateTime$>
COMMENT-BODY:<$BlogCommentBody$>
--------
-/blogitemcomments>
-/blogitemcommentsenabled>
-/blogger>
--->
The part in green is the "show all comments" html.
(I had to change the "<" to "-" for the sake of this post but I know what it means.)

Now, I'm going to see if I can go blind trying to figure out WHERE to add that and what to delete to make it work.
I'm saying this in case things get very wonky around here.

Wish me luck.
Aggie

2-7-08 Saturday plans

Kitty:

who is "macking" for the camera here (poser) is going to the vet today. It's time for bloodwork and such.
He's the diabetic one...and our only remaining baby. He's also 16yrs old, which in kitty years is 80.
He's not doing bad for 80 but he is getting a bit feeble and sometimes he stands in the bathroom and howls at nothing. We think it's his shadow maybe. He has cataracts and I'm sure nothing is all that clear. Poor kitty.

Then, I guess we're going to go out and buy food so we can couch all day tomorrow. Something about a football game or something. Whatever. I hope the guys in purple win. (hah)

Tra-la-la. Have a happy weekend.

Quick Friday

Learn to write your hurts in sand.
Learn to carve your blessings in stone!
-Unknown

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
-David Viscott

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
-Mother Teresa

And these words from John Mayer's "1983" ringing in my head today:

"These days

I want to be six again

Oh make me a red cape

I want to be Superman...

...Send your prayers to me

Care of 1983

You can paint that house a rainbow of colors, rip out the floorboards, replace the shutters but...that's still my plastic in the dirt. Whatever happened to....whatever happened to my lunchbox? When came the day that it was thrown away and don't you think I should have had some say in that decision?"

A reprisal of fractalism:

2-2-06 Things that make you go "Hmmm"

"LIGHTENING STRIKE"

OMG! The phone rang at 6:30a.m. and my mother's name came on the caller ID. (freak out)
She's ok. Whew!
She saw something on the news and she had no one to share it with. Something big.
Something big to us anyway.

She heard that the place my father worked for 16 years will close its doors tomorrow.
We let our mouths hang open on that.

Here's the life lesson we'll carry away from it. The one to share.
"Do not continue working in a job where you're unhappy. If you're miserable, start today looking for something better!"

He worked there for 16yrs. He did it with a smile regardless of the idiocy. Because my Dad knew and shared humor, he did have very close friends there. A number of them came to the funeral. One cried at the podium. A grown man cried for the loss of a co-worker...a friend.

About 8 years ago Van Tyle Corporation (sp) bought the dealership.
They cut everyone's pay in half.
Still Dad stayed on.
They cut staff and benefits.
And he stayed on.
They changed his hours to include Saturdays.
And he stayed.

Dad was afraid to leave because of his age. Where would he find another job? He'd built benefits and had health insurance. The pay cut left them with just enough to live on. (my parents have always lived within their means - not extravagant)
So he never left. He was abused by an ignorant, doom-sayer boss who not only made him do all the work and complained constantly, but hired on his own son. His son who couldn't get a job because of DWI convictions and such. The boy was hired to work under my father. That nearly drove my Dad mad.

Dad just wanted to work there another 5 years and be done with it.
5 more years and he would be 67 and Mom would be 65. They could retire and go on Medicare.
But he didn't make it.
Now....neither will they.

I have a sadness in my heart for the good people he worked with.
Dad would have been unemployed anyway. He'd be working on an ulcer already.
We beat Van Tyle...the hard way.

Maybe he put a little hex on that "humanless" Corporation.

Wow. What an incredibly odd mix of emotions this is.


Happy Thursday all. It's almost the weekend.

2-1-06 Oblio

The post today is about Oblio.
Oblio was born different than the rest of the town. Their heads were all pointed but his was round.
He was banished into a deep and scary forest...in search of the point.
He found it.

The movie (cartoon) was named The Point and it came out in 1971.
Ringo Starr was the narrater, I think George Harrison was the cartoonist and Harry Nilsson sang "Me and My Arrow". (if you know the song, it will be stuck in your head all day.)
Harry Nilsson also wrote the story.
Mostly I remember that the artwork pretty much defined all 1960's animation artwork as far as I was concerned.
The artwork, the story and the dog (Arrow) are what I remember.
It was a good story.

Anyway, little Oblio wandered through this forest and met many a deranged character.
Last night, while fractalizing, I accidentally created this "scary forest" looking thing and now we're all caught up. (Which is to say that THAT brought us to HERE.)

Scary Forest


I guess we're all wondering through our own scary forest, meeting interesting characters. Some characters are good. Others bad. Some have good hearts and bad brains.
The point is, we learn from all of them....and eventually....if we're paying attention......we'll find The Point too.

Happy Wednesday.