eMail Fun...

For Hayden's 8th birthday his parents started an eMail account for him. I try to send him something so he has a little note whenever he pauses to check his eMail. He is a busy guy and, fortunately, sitting at the computer is not a high priority.

I have been going through my computer files and clearing out a LOT of useless files, reorganizing some of my folders, etc. While doing this vital work, I came across the first eMail Katelyn sent me. She, too, was about 8 years old at the time. As I read through it I felt strongly I should send it to her for her personal history and also send it to Hayden to enjoy this right of passage.

On January 9th I quickly sent the file as an attachment to this eMail:

Hi Katelyn & Hayden,

I'm cleaning out some old files on my computer. I came across this first
eMail from Katelyn. I thought Katelyn might like a copy for her own personal
history. Then I thought Hayden might enjoy seeing it since he now has his
first eMail.

Love Ya Both Bunches,
Ma

On January 20th (see, I told you he didn't check eMail's often) Hayden caught up on his digital correspondence. I received this eMail from him. We have been reading The Chronicles of Narnia. The Silver Chair is the next to last book in that series.

Ma, we finisht the Silver chair
Katelyn's eMail was very anchint

P,S.I have'not got EPIC MICKEY 2 THE POWER OF TWO

Okay, as a Gramma, I shall cherish forever this process of learning to spell. There are three spellings in this that just give my old heart a giggle.

Being very amused by Hayden, age 8, calling Katelyn, now age 20, 'anchint', I did the only thing I could do. I eMailed Katelyn his response. This is what I heard back from Katelyn.

This is the second time he called me ancient l. :) I feel so old.

Note the advanced use of emoticons in her eMailing. When I was her age and there were no computers (we did have electric typewriters) the best we could do was dot our 'I's' with hearts. Go figure.

I responded to Miss Katelyn in the only way I could.
 

Alas...I find you so young. Perspective my dear, perspective!!

What a delightful exchange with my grandmonsters. What a cherished memory I now have. Love being a Gramma.

A Day For The Birds...

Yesterday afternoon I was in the basement in my sewing room pulling things together to teach my Institute class. I heard a strange noise and checked my laptop to be sure nothing was happening with it. Then I realized it was coming from outside.

 

My blinds have been closed to keep out some of the cold air. I lifted one slat and looked out between the blinds. Oh my goodness, what a sight. The air and ground were filled with hundreds and hundreds of birds. Everyone one of them had a part in whatever conversation they were having. I did notice one lone black bird standing on the ground with a very stunned look on his face. Black birds are bigger and tend to get their way in the bird kingdom in our back yard. Not yesterday.

 

I grabbed my cell phone and hurried to the back door to see if I could get some kind of photographic evidence of this wonder.

 

The birds were literally covering the ground and filling the air when I quietly opened the door. As soon as they saw me they took to the air. This was the tail end of this enormous flock of birds. It was absolutely amazing.

Tidbits of Thought...

I'm back to the busy schedule and Blogging definitely takes a back seat when that happens. Thought I would share some random thoughts in no particular order...that fits my life pace right now.

Tidbit #1:
Bailey called me the other night. She is a Daisy. That is the pre-Girl Scout organization. That means she needs to get people to purchase Girl Scout cookies from her. If you know me, you know I started a tradition many years ago of ordering the favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie for each of our family members. On their birthday they know that one of their presents will be a box of their favorite Girl Scout cookie. This means I order a lot of Girl Scout cookies, 19 boxes to be exact. I was truly happy Bailey, our youngest grandmonster, would be the beneficiary of this largess this year. Andie alerted me she wanted Bailey to do the talking and ask me about ordering.

Bailey called and we said our hellos for a a bit. Then she did ask me if I wanted any cookies. I told her I needed a lot and then told her I needed 19 boxes. Bailey quickly said, "You can't!" I told her I really needed 19 boxes. Bailey said, "You have too much!" I didn't know where to go with this. Not what I expected. I reminded Bailey I needed that many boxes for enough to give everyone a box on their birthday. She assured me she didn't want me to 'run out of money'. Bless her little heart.

I talked to Andie again and wanted to be sure I had not hurt Bailey's feelings. It turns out Bailey had already spoken with Michael's grandmother before me. She had also walked a few blocks in their neighborhood that day. While talking to me she found a container of markers she hadn't used in a while on the top of the counter. All these things combined and she was sure I was ordering too many boxes and it would cost too much money. The end result was my eMailing Andie my cookie order to go on Bailey's order form.  We ended the conversation with Andie saying, "I can't wait to tell her father that she was trying to down sell!!"  Michael is a sales person extraordinaire. That would have been a fun moment to watch.

Tidbit #2:
While watching the television one evening after having lots of rain during the day, I noticed that stream of weather warnings running across the bottom of the television screen. One came up that stated, "Flood Advisory in Bath County".  I definitely think that  was worth a chuckle.

Tidbit #3:
My parents 64th wedding anniversary would have been January 9th. That is a big mile marker and the first anniversary since my mother passed away. I called Papa that day and was very happy he was doing fine.

Another note in this same vein, Papa made a day drive with a friend from Church. We brought Tiny out to our home on a Sunday evening and kept her until Monday evening. When Papa came to pick Tiny up Monday evening he was so happy to see her and she was extremely happy to see him. Before Papa even sat down after coming in the front door he was already telling me about his feelings without Tiny being in the house with him. He told me that Tiny just fills his time and thoughts. Without Tiny there, he begins to dwell on mom and how much he misses her. He is missing her more as each day passes. He assured me he feels this is a normal part of his adjustment to mom's death. But Papa was sure happy to have Tiny back to care for.

Tidbit #4:
I'm back into preparing Institute lessons and teaching again. I totally enjoyed the break over Christmas and New Year's. It was great to be able to be home more and to do some things on my long term to-do list. But now it is time to immerse myself in the New Testament. We had 10 young adults at our first class. Many of these were new students. We had a good lesson and set the pace for a good class for this semester. We'll be studying Acts through Revelation.

Saturday was my first Seminary and Institute Inservice for this semester. It was a really good 2 hour training period. It feels good to leave these meetings eager to try new teaching techniques and polish up ones already learned. Sometimes you can leave thinking, "Why did they ask me to teach this? I can never teach like these people." It just feel super to leave uplifted and ready to go for the next month of lessons.

We were also blessed with another excellent CES Fireside. CES stands for Church Educational System. Every few months a General Authority speaks to all the youth in the Church between 18 to 30 years of age. The broadcast can be viewed at the church via satellite, by streaming video on your computer, or, as I like to watch it, at home on you own television in your comfy clothes via the BYU channel. This time it was Pres. Dieter Uchtdorf.  His talk was titled "What is Truth?" and he did a masterful job of teaching us. I have asked all the young adults who were able to view this broadcast to come with their favorite quote or impression to share this Thursday. I'm anxious to hear what touched each of them and why, and for all of us learn together.

Tidbit #5:
The digital world continues to confound and amaze me.

Katelyn sent her old Nook for Papa to use while sitting in his chair. We loaded it with Solitaire and the scriptures. He tried to use it some but didn't get the hang of it. I took it back last week to see if I might be able to use it. I was playing at the breakfast table with it when Claude came home and walked past me. He just shook his head. He went to our bedroom to get comfy and then to his office. I kept playing with downloading manuals I would want to have easy access to for Institute, Sunday School and Relief Society.

Now...let's go back a bit. While ordering a new keyboard for my laptop (that is an entire OTHER tidbit!!) I had to have a Pay Pal account set up to us my credit card to purchase the keyboard. I set up the Pay Pal account but was very uneasy, as I usually am, with giving out my credit card information again. Before leaving my computer that night, I checked to see if the charge for the keyboard was on my credit card statement. In doing this I found the charge pending and three other charges that made no sense. Antennae started to pop up that someone was trying to use my credit card number. I hurried upstairs to check with Claude about these three other charges to be sure he made them and they were legitimate. When I asked about the charge to Amazon for a tidy sum, he kind of winced and assured me it was fine. I told him it was a pending charge and hadn't gone through yet. He assured me in a tone that said, "Please don't ask me any more questions about that charge," that it was a legitimate charge. I left it at that and waited until the next day to check the credit card again.

Return to Tidbit #5...When Claude left his office he came back to the breakfast table and laid a box on the table and said, "You might as well have this."  I carefully opened the box and out came a Kindle Fire HD. Oh my goodness!!!  Claude had purchased it through Amazon and wanted to load it all up and have it ready for me for our anniversary next month. I was definitely taking the wind out of his surprise on many levels. What a great husband. I wasn't ever planning to purchase any kind of a tablet for myself and thought I could have made Katelyn's old Nook work just fine. Now I was blessed with a great surprise from my hubby and way ahead of our anniversary. Claude did take it back and set it up for me. Then he and I picked out a couple of games for the grandmonsters to enjoy playing on it and a couple of games for me to play.

I took it to Church Sunday for the first time. I did not take my paper scriptures. I must state that it was the hardest thing I have done in a long time, to walk out of my home on a Sunday headed to Church without my paper scriptures. I looked up at Claude as we left to get in the car with only my purse and my Kindle inside it. I didn't have to play the organ so I didn't have to carry music. I just looked at Claude and said, "I truly feel like I am leaving something at home that I will need."  He just chuckled. He has become accustomed to only carrying his Kindle with all the books he needed downloaded to it. He perfectly well knows the emptiness, or maybe I should describe it as the lightness, that you feel when you don't carry all your books you are used to toting around.

I did fine until I got to Relief Society. I tried to open the manual for that class and it had not been downloaded. I thought that wouldn't be a problem as it only takes a couple of minutes to download and install. However, the signal from the WiFi at the church is not strong enough to reach the Relief Society room so I couldn't download it. I just closed it and put the Kindle back in my purse. As I sat there it finally occurred to me, I had also downloaded all those books on my cell phone. I quickly got out my cell phone and sure enough I could follow right along on it.

My motto for all this digital mania is "that which does not kill us makes us strong".  And, I'm happy to note that I'm beginning to know which charger goes with which device so I can set everything to charge each evening.

Tidbit #6:
The Keyboard...not the piano one...the laptop one.

My backspace key popped off my laptop keyboard. I do believe I posted about that in November or December. A wonderful man at Church noticed my Facebook post about it popping off and the Geek Squad telling me they could fix it but I would have to leave my laptop with them for two weeks. Yuk!!  Bless Trent's heart he immediately started checking into laptop keyboards on the Internet. He commented on my post that he could help me if I wanted him to.

Trent and I messaged back and forth and I got him the information he needed to find the right keyboard. He found two purchase options for me and sent me the links. I determined the one I wanted to purchase and set up that Pay Pal account I noted in Tidbit #5 and ordered the keyboard. When it arrived I messaged Trent and told him it was in. We set up Satuday after my Institute Inservice for me to drop by their home and he would put the new keyboard in for me.

He did a great job and it was very interesting to watch him work. Trent assured me I would NEVER have to worry about this keyboard coming off this laptop. He said he has never seen that many screws to keep a laptop together before. I had noted him carefully taking out screws and lining them in different places on their dining table so he would know exactly where to go for the right screw for the right place when he put it all back together.

I got home and turned on the laptop. When I started to use it I noticed the difference immediately. The old keys were a slick surface. The new keys are a rougher texture and they feel a little higher and more solidly placed over the computer. I don't think I'll ever pop one of these off with my speedy typing and a long finger nail.

How grateful for friends that can do these kinds of things. Thanks Trent for taking so much of your time to research and then help me fix my little computer problem.

Tidbit #7:
Two of the ladies that I visit teach have had birthdays in the last two weeks. One of these ladies is a young mother with three little ones and her hubby is in Bolivia. The other is divorced and has no family that calls or cares for her. Each of these ladies I took bright yellow flowers to on their birthdays. One got gerbera daisies and the other got tulips. I was pleased at the joy each of these ladies had in those bright yellow flowers. It just seems there is something delightful in receiving flowers when you are female. It may work the same for men but I'm thinking not quite as much. Their eyes filled with a tear or two as they each expressed how they loved getting flowers and how long it had been since anyone gave them flowers. This is an important lesson to remember.

Long ago I heard a story, can't remember where or when, but the story remains in my memory. A woman's husband died. Several months later it was the date for their anniversary. A friend remembered that date and spoke with the lady about it. She expressed the thought that her husband had always given her yellow roses on their anniversary. The thing she would miss so much that day and that she really wanted would have been the yellow roses. Her friend saw all the need from not having her husband and opted to give her something more practical. The lady was truly grateful for the gift, but the yellow roses would have filled the ache in her heart.

This story came to my mine as I tried to determine what to give each of these wonderful ladies. They could have each definitely used something more practical in their lives as they struggle with not enough income to cover needs. But I shall never forget the joy in their faces and eyes as they received bright yellow flowers on their birthdays.

Tidbit #8:
I should Blog more frequently and these posts might be a little shorter. That may not happen though with life busy again.

Sabbath Poetry...

This evening I tried to move one other set of items from my old cell phone to my new one. I had a set of 'notes' in my old phone. The new phone does not appear to have such a facility. I figured out a way to include the notes that worked for me and spent about a hour this evening getting the transfer accomplished.

As I went through these notes, I re-read the quotes that I kept there. I also found two poems that meant a lot to me. I determined I wanted to share one of those poems in my Blog entry today. It is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit around it and pluck blueberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.

 

I mistakenly catagorize people from years ago as being totally serious most of the time.  I love that while writing about a very serious topic, acknowledging the hand of God in all things, Ms. Browning drives home her point with a delicious nugget of truth in the form of a fruit. Clever lady!!

 

Love this poem.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream...

Okay, I just checked the Internet and learned the catchy title I selected for this Blog entry is from Hamlet's soliloquy which begins, "To be or not to be" and occurs in the play as he ponders suicide after learning his uncle killed his father and then married his mother. Geez!!!

Let it be known, I'm using this catchy phrase because I thought it fit my father in this picture. However, my father was NOT pondering suicide so that has absolutely NO bearing on the feeling behind this picture. There...that stated...here is the picture.

Papa joined us for an afternoon and dinner. I was sitting on the loveseat and noticed he quit talking for a bit. I found him sleeping with his faithful little companion, Tiny. I'm sure the two of them strike this pose a lot in their apartment. We had a wonderful afternoon and enjoyed a grand roast beast dinner prepared by the Big C. 

Let it also be known that upon looking at the picture on my cell phone, I realized where I left my soda. Can you find it? I did!

Now, That's Just Not Right...

While purchasing groceries for New Year's Eve, we came across something new in the fruit and vegetable section. It was a Pummelo. We searched to find any indication of what it was or where it came from to no avail. I pulled out my trust Blackberry an searched the Internet. I learned it was an 'exotic' fruit from somewhere (can't remember where) and was believed to be the origin of the grapefruit. We purchased one for $2.50 just to see what it was like.

This morning I finally remembered to cut it in half to share with my honey. This is what inside of this lusciously round and large piece of fruit.

I just stood at the counter and laughed as I put each half in a bowl for us to eat. When I took Claude his bowl, he also got a laugh out of it. The taste was good. I appreciate the new found knowledge. But, from now on, I'll be purchasing grapefruit!!

Out With The Old, In With The New...

The end of 2012...

Look at this picture and see what you notice.

Miss Bailey learned last year that the nice nativity was not a toy for her. I have lots of nativities around our home at Christmas. But she seems drawn to this one. In case you didn't notice, that is Bailey on the right and she has placed a paper cup under the donkey's nose for it to have something to drink. All imaginary but lovely caring nonetheless.

Later one day Bailey was playing with the nativity magnet set I have on the refrigerator while I was working in the kitchen. She moved the pieces around until they were just right according to her sense of perspective. Then the light bulb went off in that little brain of hers and she began moving the pieces in another direction. There are about 20 pieces in this nativity so she had to work to get them just like she wanted. When she finished she said, "Look Ma, I made a Christmas tree!" Lo and behold, there all the pieces were stuck to the fridge in an order that formed a perfect Christmas tree.   

This year I purchased a Russian matryoshka doll nativity just so Bailey could enjoy it. She loves playing with the big set Andie brought back from Russia so it seemed logical she would enjoy one that was a nativity. She did. In fact, as I was putting Christmas things away, this is what I found.

Every little matryoshka figure is matched perfectly with the ceramic figure. Please note that Baby Jesus is holding his counter-part Baby Jesus. This gave me an added grin for this Christmas season.

By Saturday the last of the Christmas stuff was downstairs stored away for next year. Well, almost everything. I always manage to leave one thing behind. No matter how well ordered I think I'm being in my storing process, I always manage to miss one item. This year it was the cow ornament that hangs from the door knob to our deck. I even remember seeing it there and saying in my head, "You should put that on the dining room table with the other items to be packed up." But I didn't get that done right then and it still hangs on the doorknob to the deck. Silly Moi!!

So the old of 2012 is all packed away and was very much enjoyed.

Now...on to the new of 2013...

We have managed to get to two movies over the last two weeks. Since we don't frequent the movie theater a lot, this could be considered a minor miracle.

However, this year The Hobbit came out. I love J.R.R. Tolkien's books. I first read The Hobbit many years ago in paperback form. Then I read the three Lord of the Rings books. My enjoyment of these books led me to purchase the hardbound books for my personal library. Claude and I have a New Year's Eve tradition of watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That is nine hours of movies. I usually have a crocheting project underway and get lots of crocheting done during this moviefest time. The end of this last year, in preparation for the movie, I re-read The Hobbit and totally enjoyed it again. Seeing the movie was a must on my to-do list. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure why they have to make three movies out of that one book. The novel is no longer than any of the three Lord of the Rings books and each of those books was only made into one movie. Claude assures me it is a market ploy. But we enjoyed this movie date.

The other movie we saw last night. It was Les Miserable. This is my all time favorite play, ever.  We saw it everytime it came to the National Theater in Washington, DC. Can't even guess how many times that was in our 20 years of living in Maryland. I loved it every time. My kids sang and played the music around the piano. We were both very happy with the movie. The voices were not as strong as my favorites over the years. My favorite vocalist for Jean Valjean has always been Gary Morris. My favorite vocalist for Javert is Norm Lewis. The thing I really enjoyed about the movie was the added emotion you could feel with added sets and movement of the actors. It was a great movie evening and I could highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyes Les Miserable.

The biggest 'new' for Claude and me so far in 2013 is the purchase of new cell phones. We agreed that would be our Christmas present to each other. We waited until after Christmas and got them New Year's Eve. This meant, instead of crocheting like a fiend while watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was feverishly learning my new phone while Claude was doing the same. While it is frustrating to get contacts in and correct (even if you copy them from one medium to another there is always a lot of clean-up to do) the fun part is sharing with each other the things we learn how to do. I now have all my contacts in and my calendar is all up-to-date. This took hours to accomplish but it was good I had a few days to do that in. Now we are just trying to learn how to use them most efficiently. I'm not happy with their ring tones and want Hayden singing 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' on this phone. I've got it copied but can't find the way to make it the ring tone. I'll get there. In fact, I'm now creating a list to take back to the store to get their help with getting my questions answered about how to make some things work. This phone is much larger than my Blackberry was. At first I felt like I was holding a brick up to my head. It is not that thick or heavy but the surface area is so much larger that is what it felt like. Claude and I both agree we have fallen behind in that fast moving digital race. I'm sure we'll keep these phones long enough we will be further behind in a few years. Not even going to try and compete in that race.

So we are on to make our mark in and on 2013. Let the journey continue...