All In the Numbers

I like statistics. Not calculating them but I like reading things that tell me what percentage of something did something, does something, was something and as a result something happened. You can write a story with statistics.

For example, I was looking at my dashboard and they have a lot of statistics there. They haven't always had the setup they have now but gradually it has been improved upon. Anyway, I can remember for several years not much happened on my stat board. The  numbers would slide up one by one. Telling me someone or something came by. I was up around 10,000 as of 2010, I think. They don't have a long term record that I can see but I think that's right.

Last year I changed my NaNoWriMo profile and pointed people here. Honestly, I didn't think people read my NaNo profile. Really. Why would they? But suddenly, those numbers were moving up in double digit segments. By the end of the year it was in excess of 11,000. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know bots make the numbers rise. I've been doing this awhile, thanks. But they're not the only thing that raise the count. If I  delve below the surface, I can see where people and things are coming from and they were coming from my profile on NaNo. Every entry that says NaNoWriMo in the link is from that profile. And there were a several.

Today I looked and in two years I've had more hits than in at least three years before 2010! I'm now on my way to 17,000. I expect to hit that number before the end of next week.

Let's see. I changed my bio on NaNo. The numbers went up. I began linking to my FB page. The numbers moved faster. I linked my posts to my G+ stream. The numbers really started to click. And now, Multiply is closing and I've directed people from there with a link. The numbers moved a bit faster AND I went from 4 followers to 20, most of those all new people. I placed a link on Blogster and gained a couple more. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know some are still bots. I don't care. Those bots are feeding themselves on  my posts and carrying them elsewhere to distribute to potential people  who, one hopes, will in turn come to enjoy my blog.  Someone doing a search on something will get a hit on my blog...they might come by. I might make a new acquaintance, gain a new follower, start a new conversation.

That's a good story. 

Fried Day

Coming up with witty titles is half the battle of getting  a blog written. I like it when I title a post at the beginning and when I finish it still has the same title. More often, however, by the time I finish a post I have a totally different title in mind. Sometimes I leave it blank until I finish so I can save time.

I'm thinking that today's title won't change. That is pretty much how I feel. I've hit the files hard this week and I'm simply exhausted. I still have to go home, clean house, pay bills and pack in time to leave on Sunday morning. It doesn't sound like much but it is. I really should never have hired someone to clean for me, even for a few weeks. Now I hate cleaning house more than ever but I hate clutter and dirty dishes in the sink and laundry in the hamper! 

I've finally got my online writer's group sorted out. We were using Facebook for the group but have moved to Google Groups because of all the features they have on their site and it integrates with all things Google. I spent last evening overhauling the site with one of the members and now I think we're pretty well set. I hope so. I need to do some serious writing.

I've had Sarah in the evening most of this week. She is such a wonderful little girl. We played card games before but last weekend I bought her a Chutes & Ladders game. How many of you remember that? I do!  Anyway, some time ago I taught Sarah a couple of card games, Old Maid and Go Fish. She liked them but hated losing the first time and in fact, refused to play again. We talked about winning and losing and how it was just a game and it wasn't important who won as long as we had fun. The next time she came over she was ok with it. This week I won first on Chutes & Ladders. I squealed "I won!" She crossed her arms and smiled at me and said, "You can have a 5 minute happy dance."  I lost it and laughed, asking her where she heard that. She told me the teacher says it. I did get up and do a happy dance, not 5 minutes though. Then, I had to play a second game. I hope the child doesn't become a gambler. She won't quit until she wins a game.

I'm going to go home, get things cleaned up a bit and relax.. alone for the evening. My vacation starts on Sunday and I'm so looking forward to a week in the mountains. I haven't been to Gatlinburg but I have been to Highlands, SC and that area. I loved it. And when we moved here we came through the Smokies. I've always wanted to go back. Jerry and I  planned a couple of times to go to that area for a vacation but it just never worked our where we could go. There was just never enough money for long trips. We settled for things closer to home. I really just want some peace and quiet and to read and do nothing. 

Multiple Solutions

My week has been a bit better and I've slept much better as a result. Maybe the thought of a vacation is the cause. I don't know and it doesn't matter. There has been far less pain and that is entirely due to the weather.

Tomorrow is Thursday and the office will be closed to the public. I'm thrilled by this. I can, I hope, get a lot of work done tomorrow. If I do, it will make my return from vacation a lot less stressful.

I just finished exporting my post from my old Multiply site "Dixiegirl's Place" to a back up blog. There are problems but I don't know if it is because Blogger is doing its thing and sorting the download. One minute I can see the posts on the blog and the next I can't. I elected to do a back up blog because, as I mentioned before, this blog is a mirror of that one minus some random posts. I plan to go through them and compare posts to see what is missing and move the missing ones here. Eventually, that back up blog will be deleted. I've closed it by limiting readers only to myself. You do that in your settings by adding you as the only reader. 

I'm also going to set up some photo albums on Youtube. They'll be slide shows rather than albums of photos. Family won't be as happy but I think it will work just as well. They can be viewed easily. I don't really want to store all my photos on another site. The risk of losing them is simply too great. I'm going to copy them to disc to back them up and label them.

At the moment, I'm really exhausted. I'm going to go to bed now. I can't get into the backup site at the moment so don't know how it is progressing. I can see the posts on the dashboard but not on the blog. It says maintenance is being performed so maybe that's good. I have to say, I'm very unhappy with the media importer. It simply didn't work. So very glad I downloaded my albums. I'd hate to be at this point and find I couldn't get the photos down. 

If all goes well, I'll close the site well before December 1. I'll post the closing date ahead of time. I am sorry to leave. I have been so blessed to have all of you here with me. You've carried me through some rough times and I shall miss all those who move on to other things besides my blog. You have no idea how very much you've come to mean to me. Wherever you go, may you be blessed in all you do. 

I know some of you have already moved to other sites. Good luck to you. I've done the sinking ship one time too many and I'm going to stay with a platform I trust and that has proven stable. Slowly, I'm learning that it does all that I've been able to do here with the exception of photos. I've easily fixed that. So it makes sense to do what I've been doing long before Yahoo 360. My email is in some of the post over the last few weeks. Keep in touch if you will. If you've already joined me on Blogger, wonderful. I'm already enjoying your blogs, some of which belong new friends I found during this transition. 

Good night. 

A Lonely Dark Mountain

I stood on the front porch earlier and watched a fantastic show of  lightening as it slashed through the night sky. In the city it never gets really dark but nothing compares to the blinding white of lightening.

 When I came home from work I actually went to bed because I was so exhausted I couldn't bear it any longer. I've pushed through the last two weeks and forced myself to ignore the storms that had gathered around me - my job, my allergies, my family, my grief all have simply depleted me. I reached the end of it at 6:30 p.m. I went to bed and went to sleep.

The phone rang a few times but I'd left it in the living room and decided that, tonight at least, other people's crises weren't important enough to crawl down the hall to respond. I went back to sleep. The last call woke me and I did get up, with what I can only say was horrendous effort. I hurt everywhere. Probably a result of the low pressure system boiling overhead. I hobbled to the bathroom and then, to the kitchen where I saw it was 8:30.

In the distance I could hear thunder and the windows were blazing white every few minutes. I went out back and lowered the patio umbrella and then went to stand on the front porch and watch the light show. I returned my oldest's son's call and let him know I was o.k. Then I returned my youngest son's call. He wanted to know if I was all right. I asked about Sarah. He told me Sarah and her mother had moved out today. I didn't know that. I knew she was planning it but not when. I'd have remembered that.

If you've read much of the blog you know I actually love storms. Normally, I'd be sitting out on the porch watching this one. Not tonight.  I'm fairly tired of the storms and I'm at a loss anymore how to deal with them. It only gets worse each passing day.

I changed my blog title this week because it was suddenly apparent to me that my life has always been lived on this tiny ledge, swept by storms. More than once I've slipped and nearly fallen off during the storms. My life has been filled with a myriad of storms and I used to weather them well. There was usually someone to pull me back up and help me still the racing of my heart and slow my breathing. Mama protected me until she died. Jerry took over and sheltered me from the full brunt them when he could or held my hands when he couldn't. Storms are best shared. He died. Now, I ride them out alone on a small ledge on a lonely, dark mountain.

The Mental Test

This was amusing to me so I thought I'd share it. Honestly, I have a use for this test. 

A noted psychiatrist was a guest at a gathering of humor editors, and his host naturally broached the subject in which the doctor was most at ease.

"Would you mind telling me, Doctor," he asked, "how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?"

"Nothing is easier," he replied. "You ask a simple question that everyone should answer with no trouble. If there is hesitation, that puts you on the track."

"What sort of question?"

"Well, you might ask, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?'" 

The editor thought a moment, then said with a nervous laugh, "You wouldn't happen to have another example, would you? I must confess I don't know much about history."

Sarah Said....

"Mamaw," she said in a tiny voice as she pointed at a spot on her chin. "My jaw hurts. Right here."

I looked. "Where?"

She rubbed her jaw. "Right here." Then she shot me a look. "It isn't because I'm talking too much!"

Two Mondays a Week

I feel like I'm chasing my tail. If I had a tail. Today is, of course, Tuesday... after Labor Day which, in my view, makes this Monday. It has been Monday all day long. 

My day started off at a run. I'm going on vacation on the 16th and will be out of my office for a week. So, that means I have to really get ahead in my caseload. Since I am already behind by about two weeks, this is not good. I have really hit it hard today, doing about 12 files of data entry. This is actually excellent. Generally, I can get 10 at the most done in a day. So, two more is a good thing. But not enough. I have nearly 20 more.

This is no way to start a week. The last week was fairly rotten in the first place. I was sick and family crises fell like hailstones. To start another week, a new month in fact, even worse is just frustrating. 

It feels as if my life is imploding. That's different from an explosion. It means to collapse inward from external pressures or to break down or fall apart from within. I can't find a much better description. I don't want to go into it here on this blog at this point. Someone pointed out that I'd once again have to go  through a form of grief. I don't want to do that anymore. Ever. I am so stressed at the moment that I can feel it in my chest. No, not actually pain. Just that heaviness you get when things are at their worst and you know you can't fix it. Fear sort of just gnaws at you bit by bit. You get tired.

I am tired. Of a life that seems filled with every dream and hope that I ever held shattered at my feet and then I am forced to walk across the razor sharp shards to some nebulous end. There is not pot of gold. There's not even a rainbow.  There will be those who say I overreact. Maybe I do. You need to walk very quietly from the room. Don't come back until I call you. Don't hold your breath. 

Monday I went to the Urgent care for a bug bite. Silly old thing that I am, I had a mosquito bite on my thumb but then there was some other bite on my leg, above my ankle. It happened in the car. Mike and I were taking Sarah home around five. She'd been to the Labor Day picnic with us but I was tired. I suppose the bug got in when I did. I got stressed because the mosquitoes here are infested with West Nile virus. I'm been so careful going out and taking Sarah out. But I only went from inside the house to inside the car. I shouldn't have to shower in Off. But I got bit.

The one on my thumb looked like a normal mosquito bite. The one on my leg didn't. It didn't get the red raised mound of a normal mosquito bite. It got very red and made a rectangular mark that grew to about the size of the end of my pinky from the join to the tip. It stung, not as bad as a bee sting but sort of like it feels when you stick a hot match to your skin. I had a terrible meltdown. There was no one to really care about it. No one to hold my hand, talk me down to a sane frame of mind. I called a couple of people. They have lives of their own. They moved on. 

Of course no one was as concerned as I. I don't know what I expected. I was terrified. Yeah, I know I nuts. You're late. The mark just got redder and redder and seem to spread over the course two hours. I finally decided to go to the urgent care. I called and ask David to go with me. Jerry would have gone with me if he'd been here. Mike would have gone if I'd called him but he doesn't handle my stress well anymore. Who am I kidding... I don't handle it well anymore. He's just not equipped for it, although he tries valiantly. More so than anyone else. 

Anyway, Dave went with me. I melted down in the car. He actually handled it pretty well. I really  needed Jerry to be there. Really, really, really. I got Dave to drive. I sat in the waiting room two hours and the mark faded away. Once they called me back I felt stupid but I have to say they didn't treat me that way. The were very kind and understanding and the doctor, when I saw him told me he was going to take notes on what had happened and if something changed I was to call. He said there were things they could tell me on the phone to do so I wouldn't have to come back in. I dropped David home and came home alone. 

It is an eternal irony that I don't want to live with people but I do not want to be alone. I am not able to resolve the paradox. 

Rainy Day Monday

Labor Day. I'm ready to go to the church Labor Day Picnic. I have to pick up Sarah and Mike. No one else is going. If Sarah wasn't going, I'd stay home and do some much needed house work. It is, after all, labor day.

I've been going from room to room hunting things and finding that the problem is there is still too much STUFF! I want some space and order and I don't seem able to get there. Things still find their way into rooms and stay for no apparent reason. I need to find a place to start, and just do it. I did that a couple of years ago and tossed a lot of junk but this time, I seem to be stalled.

It is like some sort of transition step you take in the grief process, I guess. That one step is just a bit too high for me to reach. Sigh.

I've been experiencing that overwhelming hollowness again. The holidays are approaching but I hesitate to blame them. I  haven't even thought of Thanksgiving and Christmas. . . well, not much. I've been thinking about NaNoWriMo. I've been thinking about my son's impending divorce. I've been thinking about how much pain I've been having again. I've been thinking about how upsetting it is to be in chaos alone. Sigh.

All right, too much thinking.

I'm thinking about changing the name of my blog. I have done that one time and I've never been terribly happy with it. Boring.  But last night when I was downloading the missing blogs from the quickly dying Multiply I ran across one that is a snapshot of my life every single day. The title of that post was brilliant and I don't know why I didn't see it before. Well. . . I only write them once and move on so that could be why. Even the content of the post was such a snapshot of what I live that it was laughable. It isn't on this blog yet. I'll post it eventually. The name change you'll see probably sooner.

Maybe even today.

Beginning of the End

This post is made on Multiply but will be cross posted to Blogger. My days of blogging on Multiply are drawing to a close. I just deleted all post from 2006-2007 here on Multiply. It was funny because they were all from Yahoo 360. I joined Multiply in Oct 2007! That first year I was a non paying customer. I waited until I saw how it would go. Stated my premium account the next year. I downloaded only things that were missing on my blogger site. I will put those into blogger as I can. There is a feature in the post page of blogger where I can put the correct date and it will insert it in the correct order. Multiply has the same feature. So no worries. Beginning in 2008, after I started Multiply, I cross posted almost everything. So glad id did that! Most of what I didn't cross post was unimportant and I won't be moving them now. I will get through the next five years in a few weeks. Once all posts are copied, I will delete my account.

I'm actually excited about my Blogger site. Everything is going smoothly. I like the way it looks (very much like the one here, and I'm really liking the stuff I can put on the page and the fact that I can link all my other blogs together. Just makes it easy to keep up. No, I don't have the social contacts at the level I had here but I haven't been happy with the other sites I've tried and since everyone has gone in all directions, it doesn't really matter. It is odd, most of my old 360 contact joined me here but that isn't happening this time. Still, I've managed to keep emails and addresses of those I want to keep up with. And I've acquired new friends who have gone to Blogger.

If you go to blogger, look me up. I'm on G+ and that seems to be growing, too. Several of you have already joined me there. I'm still learning my way around there but it is such a new thing and they are adding stuff all the time with tutorial videos each time. So my learning curve isn't so steep.

It's late and I'm tired. I'm headed for bed. Tomorrow is the church Labor Day picnic. We've had rain for three days and I don't know if it is slated for tomorrow. I'm just glad to be off.

The Last Word

It was a rather simple explanation when I began. I was updating a profile. I think profiles are rather boring for the most part but sometimes you run across one that is just amazing to read. I decided I needed to update my profile on Blogger since it is now linked with G+. I'm on the internet in various places and my profile is one of the typical profiles... rather boring. I think I wanted to be someone exciting and special. You see, I'm not important. I've made no earth shattering discoveries. I'm not a movie star, sports figure, or Nobel prize winning writer. I am Mertice's girl; Jerry's wife and widow; Mike & Dave's mom; Sarah's Mawmaw. I mean something to them but half of them are dead. All are noble things to be but they just aren't. . . special.

So, I began to write a new profile and found myself totally stumped. I reread the old one and yes, that was me. . . the one who died when the world turned upside down and she fell off. I realized that I no longer resembled that person much, at least in my own mind and that if I was really honest, I don't really know who I am anymore. Kind of makes it hard to create an accurate profile. What could I say about who and what and why I am? I didn't know. So I sent out this email. “I need one word you'd use to describe me.” I figured I'd get something to string together and make it sound . . . well. . . special.

I emailed 18 people asking them to describe me in one word. Nothing more that that. These were people who know me to varying degrees and the time spans vary. Some hold degrees, some don't. Some are Christians, some don't even believe in the man in the moon. Of those not related to me, I've met about half face to face and the others, I've never met at all but I have held long conversations with them, a few well into the darkest hours of the night during the worst days I've ever lived.

One by one the responses came in. Of course, with the responses came the inevitable question: What is this for? I decided I'd let them know when I figured it out.

I received ten responses to my query and the order was fairly predictable but I won't identify anyone. They will know what their responses were and that's all that matters. They all sort of astounded me in one sense. They flattered me. That wasn't my intention at all. Hold on before you go making assumptions. I didn't say they were all intended to flatter me. Some words were picked because that is how some people view me and it is in a negative light. Yes, they're friends. No, it doesn't bother me. You see, I don't think I can really know me until I know how others see me. I know that how some people see me isn't always truth but sometimes it is and in both cases who I am is revealed.

So, I'm getting these words. The thing is, I'm an avid word hound. From the time I was a small child I loved looking up the meanings of words. I mean, you think you know what something means but have you really looked it up . . . in a really big dictionary? When I was seven or eight years old, my mama bought this huge dictionary. It was my most favorite book in the whole world and I used it faithfully. I've never lost a love for huge dictionaries. My current one probably weighs a good twelve pounds. It is a library dictionary – even more huge. As the responses came in, I looked up every one and their meanings. I reasoned that I'd get a broad idea of what they were saying and thinking if I had the definitions.

I must have been right because I clearly saw myself in what they gave me. I don't deny it. I doubt everyone will agree, but that's all right. That's who they are. I share these with you because this is who I am.

A very old friend, 20 years, sent me the very first word, and I wasn't surprised by the timing nor the word. PROVINCIAL: not a nice word in itself, if you think too much about it. In this case the first definition  was “narrow” meaning I'm narrow minded. But I never settle for one definition. I discovered I am very provincial. You see, I am “lacking the polish of urban society; unsophisticated.” And am I thankful that I do not reflect the current society and its version of sophistication and broad mindedness. It reeks of vanity, self-indulgence, and pettiness. It is also fairly obscene and totally lacking in character. There was a third entry for provincial: “of or relating to a decorative style (as in furniture) marked by simplicity, informality, and relative plainness”. I'm pretty certain this paints a good picture of my taste, morals, and ethics. And for those who've visited my home... a pretty accurate description of the house. Probably describes how I dress, too!

A relative sent me UNIQUE: “being the only one; sole; being without a like or equal; unequaled distinctively characteristic; peculiar; unusual”. Although I never considered myself unique in any way, she's probably right. I didn't know she thought that way about me. In light of this experiment I'm more inclined to agree now. Its a good thing.

The next response came from someone I've only known about a year, one of my NaNo group. SINCERE: free of dissimulation; honest; pure; marked by genuineness; true”. I have to admit here that I'm flattered. The truth is, I have a great desire to always be sincere. I don't like prevarication and dissimulation. I want the person you see to be the person I really am. Well, maybe its working.

One of my best never met friends called me CHALLENGING: “arousing competitive interest, thought, or action; invitingly provocative, fascinating”. We exchange some very interesting thoughts and ideas. She's wonderful, smart lady. Challenging isn't something I've ever seen in me but the concept made me smile. Bear in mind I've been called difficult by some... just saying.

I have several never met friends and this is one who has followed my trials and who's own life is filled with painful difficulties. She sent me the word ENDURE. It is a transitive verb and means “to undergo (as a hardship) especially without giving in, suffer; to regard with acceptance or tolerance”. There are times I'd rather not wear this word but when I looked it up, it gave me something. Courage, I think.

Another never met friend said I was SEARCHING. We've only known each other about a year but her word gave me pause. She's a smart woman and she's picked up on a lot in a short time. “To look or inquire carefully; to make painstaking investigation or examination.” Sometimes those who know you least, know you best? Maybe I'm just nosey? Nah, searching is good.

The next email was from a friend who also helped me get through the dark times. They sent me OPINIONATED. Its a lovely word, one people love to toss around, particularly opinionated people! I must say here that it is a badge I wear with honor. “Unduly adhering to one's own opinion or to preconceived notions.” If you truly believe in something, you don't let go no matter what the rest of the world thinks about you. No, I'm not changing. I don't expect anyone else to change either. After all, everyone has an opinion they think is superior.

I have a friend who's sister died, maybe a year before Jerry. Both she and her sister were never met friends, both wonderful Southern gals. I don't even know HOW we met! We all three chatted online regularly for at least a year when her sister died of cancer. I hope I was there for her, even at a distance. When Jerry died, she was definitely there for me. I built a whole farm on Farm Town with her as my neighbor and wrote about 50 chapters in Hidden in the Mist! All because of her poking and prodding me. We talked for hours. She saved my sanity. She sent the word ECLECTIC. I have to be truthful here. I would have looked this up even if I hadn't looked up the others. I didn't really know what it meant, even though I thought I did. I was sort of surprised. “Selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles; composed of elements drawn from various sources; also heterogeneous” Hmmm, well, I like it. Totally opposite of opinionated but there ya go! Still, it summed up a lot of the other words nicely.

I actually laughed out loud when the next email came in. The word was INDOMITABLE: “incapable of being subdued, unconquerable”. I could say the same about the person who sent it. I think that is why we've become friends, we share this same characteristic and it is what allows us to engage in lively conversations in G+ hangouts and via emails. . . sometimes up to a dozen in a day! Molly Brown would have loved us!

That last letter was received a little over a week ago. Of nearly twenty people, nine responded in the first week. A tenth faraway, never met friend emailed me last week to say she was having a hard time coming up with one word but she would be getting back to me. So, I decided there really was no hurry. I waited. This morning it occurred to me that I really should start putting this together and even opened my email to start it. I was amazed to find a second email from this friend.

After I read her email I was so profoundly affected I was very nearly speechless. That's doesn't happen often. I can't really describe what I felt. Remember, I asked for only one word and she gave me one but the beauty of her reply in describing why she chose this word is one of the loveliest I've ever received. I'm glad she took so long to respond. I have to share it and I hope you can understand why this word had to be the last word.

“One word is ridiculously hard you know!!! There are so many aspects of you that could describe you and all the amazing things you do. However, I keep coming back to one word, which reminds me of how I came across you on Multiply originally. It was when you had just lost Jerry and in reading your blogs I finally understood how and why people get married.

I know that sounds weird, but having Aspergers and being useless at relationships, I could never understand why my friends chose to marry the men or women that they did. And your unbelievable deep emotions at your loss explained it all - that bone deep love and grief and pain at losing him. And although I hate that you have to continue going through your loss, I am also thankful that you have taught me that lesson. I know I will never have that but you have helped me to understand the people around me more. Thank you. And to still have you, despite the whole Multiply debacle!!

Your word is – Tsunami.”

No, I didn't have to look it up.

*All definations from http://www.merriam-webster.com/

*Multiply© is the name of an online social network.

Nearing The End

Tonight I finished downloading my Multiply videos and will begin reviewing my blog for any post listed there that is not on this site. For several years I've used Blogger as my mirror site. I didn't in the early days. I was at Yahoo 360 for a couple of years and when it closed I went to Multiply, which now has also sunk. I started here first and posted irregularly and not the same things I was putting on 360.

Once I shifted to Multiply, I began to cross post a bit more but still not extensively. At one point, I moved over a lot of blogs from here to Multiply but not vice versa, mainly because Multiply has no export feature. It would make our lives, those who are abandoning ship, easier. So, I've downloaded all my albums, all the videos I want to keep and all that remains is pulling posts off that I want to save. It was tedious doing the first two. The third will be horrendous.

 I've been monkeying with the appearance of my page. I don't do that often but one of the favored features at Multiply was the ability to "dress up". I encourage you to stop by my blogger site and see how I've changed things. You can decorate. I used the same wallpaper that I've had up on Multiply for a while. I have my NaNo buttons, albeit at the bottom of the page to save space, but they're there. A tag box is also at the bottom.

There are dozens of gadgets you can add to your page. I've picked things that appeal to me. You may choose different ones. And if you're really handy, you can design your own gadgets. I suspect that in a few weeks I'll take my site down on Multiply for good. I'm rarely there except to keep up with my friends who remain. Many have disappeared but a lot of them have followed me here and are using G+ as well. I'm glad. I've gained a few new friends, too.

That's the only aspect of the shift that seems positive, at least in the beginning. However, the more I've been forced to use Blogger and learn how to do things I wasn't doing and how many new things they have that I didn't know about, well, I'm not missing Multiply as much. Yes, I miss the community interaction but I've been able to get that with those who followed me to G+. I was skeptical of it at first but it works pretty good. There are not a lot of you. But I can select a circle of people, in this case called Blog Friends, and see their posts and comment and even chat in the comments in real time. Cheryl is learning her way around and we've sort of tested the waters. And I've been able to respond to comments in the Blog itself. I check my dashboard each time and it tells me if I have comments awaiting because I've got moderation turned on.

So, I'm content with the transition, more so than I ever was with 360. And now, I'm going to bed. The day was lousy and tomorrow I go back to work. The only good thing is that next weekend is a long weekend.

Long Week, Short Weekend

Somehow there seems to be a great injustice between the week and the weekend. I don't know who decided that the week should be 5 days and the weekend 2 nor why. They could just as easily have made it 4 and 3 or 3.5 and 3.5. Equal number of work days and days off. 

I think they should find the person who decided we have to work 40 hours a week. Really. He's probably dead now so any revenge we could take is impossible. 

I'm not rested and relaxed. I did laundry, went to lunch, picked up Mike and Sarah and went to Wal-mart with my sister to get some items. It ended up being a couple of hours. When we got home I was just too tired for anything. Sarah seemed to have a good evening playing with my sister. She played school. Anyone ever done that. She was teaching Phyllis the sounds the letters make. I kept forgetting to raise my hand... you're supposed to before you talk. 

Anyway, I took Mike home and Sara around 9:30 and continued to sit in a chair . . . very late. Found out my mother fell and broke her right arm between her wrist and elbow. She was out watering plants around 9 pm?!!!! Needless to say no one is happy about it. Her left arm is useless from a couple of previous falls. She can't do anything with it as far as I can tell. It is even crooked. So now I have no idea what she will do. 

Must head out to church now. I'm depressed this morning. I don't know why but it makes it harder to leave my house. I'd rather go to bed. But I'm not having company this afternoon. I'm considering shutting off all the phones. I don't like doing that.

Soak Your Feet In the Ocean

A New York retail clerk was suffering from aching feet. "It's all those years of standing," his doctor declared. You need a vacation. Go to Miami, soak your feet in the ocean and you'll feel better." When the man got to Florida, he went into a hardware store, bought two large buckets and headed for the beach. "How much for two buckets of that seawater?" he asked the lifeguard. "A dollar a bucket," the fellow replied with a straight face. The clerk paid him, filled his buckets, went to his hotel room and soaked his feet. They felt so much better he decided to repeat the treatment that afternoon. Again he handed the lifeguard two dollars. The young man took the money and said, "Help yourself." The clerk started for the water, then stopped in amazement. The tide was out. "Wow," he said, turning to the lifeguard. "Some business you got here!"

The Bridge

I get a joke daily from GCFL.com. Today's joke just tickled me.
John lived across the river from his backwoods neighbor,Clarence, and the two feuded constantly. They never missed a chance to throw rocks and yell insults over the water.

One day the Army Corps of Engineers came to build a bridge. John was elated and told his wife he was finally going to get his hands on Clarence.

When the bridge was finished, John headed off, but he returned a few minutes later. 

"I never realized how big that guy is," John said sheepishly to his wife. "I headed for the bridge, and then I saw the sign: 'Clarence - 8 feet, 4 inches."

Easy Ways to Travel

I've had a couple of comments on the extra page feature in Blogger. It is simple to add pages to and put a tab on your main page that will take folks to either another page in the blog or to another website. 

On your Blog Dashboard, check the left menu for Pages. Select that. On the next screen, you will see a layout with just one box titled "Home". At the top is a button with a drop down menu. Select New Page. It will bring up a drop down menu that will allow you to select whether you want a webpage or a blank page. If you select a blank page, you will get to add what you want on it. If you select a link to another website, a box will open where you type the name of the page that will appear on your tab in one field and in the next field you will put the URL for that page.

This isn't complicated. The URL is the site's address and is located in the browser address bar. Copy it and then go back to blogger and paste it in the field for URL. This is where I love the feature in browsers that allow you to have several sites open in tabs. 

Once you finish inputting the information, you save it, save the blog and then go look at the main page of  your blog. 

If you have several blogs or other sites you want your guest to navigate to, this is a great way to do it. This makes it easy to move to another site. Remember, that navigating back from other sites will have to be via the back button if you don't have links set up but I've tried it a few times and it isn't a big deal for me. I really love how it came out. If you want see how this looks, check out my blog. A Series of Unforseen Circumstances

Rehash of the Past

I started this blog last Tuesday!  Crazy! But thinks got hectic and I got busy so it didn't get finished. Fortunately, the opening of the post is so appropriate. I began with -Sometimes titling a blog is such a chore! It's Tuesday morning and the sky is at least 10  shades of gray. No rain as yet but that's nothing new. This year it often clouds up and doesn't rain all over.

I didn't talk about my writer's meeting but someone did post a comment asking about it. Writer's meeting last week was a lot of fun. Those gals are just a hoot. I always have a good time. And anyone who says divorce lawyers are not amusing hasn't met Laurie. 

I formed the group because my local group was breaking up. I don't think it was intentional. They all were so busy with home, work, school, family and friends and people couldn't come to the meeting, no one was writing, and discussions had become about everything but writing.  I know when I disbanded it they were all hurt by it but it simply wasn't a writing group anymore and there were too many meetings where just one person showed up. That's not a group. We could meet and shoot the breeze any time but I needed to be involved with a group of people who wanted to write, wanted to talk about writing, and who needed an outlet to do that. I miss the old group a lot but no one has since suggested we meet to just shoot the breeze and that leads me to think my gut was correct. We were all burned out with the group. I still see a few of them on Facebook but haven't had any invitations to lunch or just to visit. But that's o.k. things change. People do, too.

The biggest difference in the current group is it meets only online. We're strung out across the US and it'd be really impossible to meet any other way without Google hangouts. Laurie is on the East coast, Samantha on the West, Cathy is in the NW, Kat, Chris and I are in the mid-west and Phyllis is in Texas. Fortunately we were able to settle on a time that seems to work pretty good for most of us and while not everyone makes every meeting,  because ultimately life is happening all the time, most of us do. And we have a good time of it. If we find less than three are going to attend, we reschedule the meeting but those who want still may "hangout" just to chat. And that's  really nice.

And now we get to today's post. It is really a gray day. And it is much cooler - 71 degrees. Nice if the sun was shinning but it isn't and so it is a bit cool. I am hoping the cold weather will hold off until October but I'm betting not. I'd like to see my moon flowers bloom if possible and they need at least a month more of warmth I think. I was a bit late getting flowers in this year because of the heat and how I felt. But the sidewalk looks great.

I've got my blogger blog tweaked a bit. Helping some of my friends get started has actually helped me learn some new things. Multiply really did have a great format and it is unfortunate that they are ending it. However, I think life will be better for me if I'm not managing so many blogs in different places. If you look at the new tabs at the top of my blog you will see I'm a bit over extended. I'm going to update at Multiply via Blogger until I get all my stuff downloaded. That's why the titles look different. Blogger emails a copy of the blog to Multiply where it is posted. I can do the same from Multiply and used to do that. The weekend was busy so I didn't do any downloading but I'm hoping to finish up the videos this week.  Once I'm done with that, I'll start deleting albums. I still would like to see an import feature for the blogs. So far they appear to have made no efforts in this direction. I hate the copy paste feature! We'll see what happens.

Oh, one other thing. My friend, Kris, had a great idea - a Photo tab a the top as well! I think it is awesome. I'm going to put one for my Youtube Channel, too. So cool!

A Great Idea

I stole a great idea from Jilly, one of my friends on Blogger. Blogger has a feature where you can have more than one page on your site. The page can be a "Post" page showing where you can post a variety of links or something special you want to be readily available but no a link on your home page. Or you can make the tab a link to another site. 

On Jilly's blog she created "Quick Notes" where you can leave comments. She can see these comments and respond. It makes it possible to have threaded comments, sort of like the guest book feature on Multiply. Really wonderful idea really. And I've copied it a and expanded on it. You have to turn on threaded comments in Blogger, by the way.

As I've said before I have about six Blogger blogs that are active. Some are closed to everyone but invited readers. A few are open to all. I've used Blogger's "pages" feature to add these as tabs at the top of my page. I'm thrilled! It is easily visible and so handy. Clicking on a tab from my home page takes you right to my other blog. I occasionally let people in to read some of these and this makes it easier than sending a bunch of links.

Thank you, Jilly!

More Assorted Questions

The Reader questions are now coming in. Don't worry! This one is easy. Just so you know, my reader says I have 1000+ items. Yeah, daunting. But really, it is simply not a problem.  I usually just go in and mark them as unread if it is something I'm not going to have time for. If I want to come back later, I leave it "unread". They're still on my list, I just don't have to bother with them.

The reader doesn't "get rid" of things. It marks them as read if you ask it. Or, when you click on one, it will be grayed out from that point on unless go back and mark it as unread. You can tell the reader to mark ALL as read. New items show up with a darker title. You will be able to easily tell when you have not read something in the reader. 

You can sort your list several way. Look at the buttons with drop down menus. Virtually every item has one. You can sort the list of subscribed items by "drag and drop". I put all the blogs I'm subscribing to in together. I did this by dragging them to where I wanted them. I also subscribe to some news sites. I don't read those all the time so they're at the bottom of my list. I've just deleted the subscriptions to Blogster I had because they don't work. I can't read them in the reader. I have to go to the actual site and I can't go from the reader title, which I should be able to do. So for me, that's it for Blogster. Too many things I can't do.

Multiply inbox uses this same principle that the reader does. Yes, items disappear when you read a blog but if you select "Posted by me" or on the name of a person in your list, you will get all the post they ever made... both read and unread. The read ones are grayed out. The difference in the reader and the Multiply inbox is that, in your inbox they vanish but in the reader they don't. New items are just put at the top. 

Another thing you can do, if you don't like the Google Feed Reader is find another reader. Do a search for Feed Reader and you'll be able to look at some others. Try them. Your email program probably has a way to read feeds. Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Firefox, Netscape, etc. all have a way to do feeds. 

So no, you can't "delete" things from a reader. It updates the feed. Feeds are live updates that belong to the person and you're being allowed to read them, typically offsite. As I commented on Wendy's Waffle, think of the reader as the daily mail. Sometimes you get junk. Sometimes you get good stuff. In the reader, as you scroll over the items, they are marked as read IF you tell the reader to do that in your settings. Once marked, it is still on the list but grayed out. You can ignore it in the future. You will only scroll down as far as you haven't read anyway.

Ideas for Photo Storage

I'm looking for places to store my photos. I use photobucket now for various items but it is limited unless you pay. Since I won't be paying for Multiply anymore, and blogger is free, I may actually save money. Paid service is $1.67 a month. In all honesty, I doubt I'll do this anymore. It was one of Multiply's best features. You could share dozens of photos in albums for friends and family to see.

Picasa has software you download free to edit photos. Integrates with Google.

Photobucket is good.

Here is a list of 20 low cost/free photo/video storage sites.

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/media-roundups/top-20-photo-storage-and-sharing-sites/

A Busy Day Ahead

It is a gorgeous day here. Beautiful sunny skies, 75 degrees! I had coffee on my front porch and read my devotional there. Then read a bit. I am getting ready now to do the bills before heading out to lunch with my children.

For my multiply friends, go to Cheryl's g+ page and you will see how the comment interaction really works. I got a notice on my G+ button that comments were posted. I went to read them and saw Cheryl's post and the comments listed. I'm going to post this blog and you should be able to go to my G+ page FROM Cheryl's and read the post I link. You can comment on the G+ page to that blog because the Blog if you have your browser set for tab uses, the blog should open in a separate tab.

If you don't want a lot of strangers on your page, just don't add people you don't know and don't follow people you have no interest in. Can other see your page? If you have everything posted to public. But you can block comments from anyone but your circles. If you post only to your circles, the Public can see. So you can shut G+ down very tightly by posting only to circles. I suggest staying public until everyone decided where they want to go so you won't miss a friend looking for you.

Don't forget to add people you want in circles. We can't get to your page if you lock up tight and don't have circles that include us. I'm public virtually always. But over time, I know my  G+ is going to be locked down a bit. This is a much larger exposure than Multiply.

Once added, I can see all your posts on G+ and blogger if you link the two through the notification process.

Ok. I'm off. If I forgot something I'll post it later.

Tips for Those Using Blogger

The Blogger Buzz is a great place to get information and help for issue in setting up various aspects of Blogger. I already posted a link from there in the previous post. Here is one with Tips for New Blogger users.

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/09/tips-for-new-bloggers.html

Anyone using Picasa for photos may know it is already intergrated into Blogger. So for those looking for a place to move their photos, this may be helpful.

You can get a button for your browser called Blog This! If you are on a web page reading something and you suddenly get a blog idea from it, you can click the button and it goes instantly to a post page with the link already there and you can write your post.

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/06/blog-this.html

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/07/creator-vs-curator.html

Not for everyone but there are a number of template types in Blogger. The video here will help you see them a bit more clearly.

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/09/dynamic-views-seven-new-ways-to-share.html

The dashboard's new look

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/10/update-bloggers-new-look.html

You can see that the Buzz is a good place to find help on the basics.

Grow your Google Blog

The following link will show you how to connect your Blogger account with G+ and allow you to share content and comments on your blog via G+.

http://buzz.blogger.com/2012/07/socialize-with-googleplus.html

Sundries

I started this in response to a post of Jilly's! When it got so long I thought, that's rude! I decided to make it a post but Jilly.... it was in response to your's. LOL

I really wish Multiply would give us an import tool! I'd like to save all my post as there are some I posted here but not on Blogger! I think that is why people are leaving now. If we wait to the end to get our stuff off, we might lose it. If we have to go to all this trouble now, why stick around? 

I've nearly downloaded all my videos but it takes days to download one year and I've got six years of them. I already did my photos and I can only hope I got them all as I could only download full albums from the specific album page. It was so tedious. I will never save photos to a blog site again.

I shall stick with blogger. I'm having more trouble on Blogster trying to get into blogs to read and post. It is already stressful enough having to backup multiply that I don't have the patience to deal with the technical issues on a strange site. And I've been trying to help people with Blogger questions. I know it is all confusing but as Jilly said, we were in similar straits when 360 failed. I know everyone will find a suitable site and settle in... but some of us may, in fact, lose track. It is why I'm so glad everyone is exchanging emails and links. If you're my contact or just a person who pops in and reads me, my blogger link is at the bottom and send me an email. 

My Google reader is full, too, but you can get rid of some of it all at once. Just have it mark "all as read". Once you get sorted out you can go to those sites and read. I have about 20 blogs on my reader now, this doesn't include other things I subscribe to. I think it will take time to sort it all out. The one good thing about the reader is I can scan and see if it is something I'm wanting to read today. LOL! Not everything is.

I'm going to get very busy in another month. National Novel Writing Month is November but I am the Municipal Liaison for my region and I plan on starting in October to rope people in and have my meet and greet for them before the end of the month. I think it will be easier if I do that. Maybe a cake and some drinks and enough time to chat everyone up. I enjoyed it last year. 

It is now well after midnight. I stopped to watch something on t.v. and time got away. I'm posting this anyway as I can't remember if there was anything else. 

Hasta manana, amigos.

A Series of Unforeseen Circumstances

"If things improve with age, then I am approaching magnificence." - From the side of my blue coffee mug.

Insights, Ponderings, and Certainties

I've has several questions and comments on Blogger/G+ use and features. Google has intergrated Blogger and G+. This is a good marriage and I expect, over time to see it fine tuned. The features of commenting and seeing comments people make are in G+ and your Blogger links are added to G+ by the you at the time of posting. 

People can comment both places. Only G+ has a notification icon in gmail or as an extension in Chrome. I'm not sure about other browsers but I'm guessing if not it will eventually. You select who you want in your circles and who you follow.  It can be five people or as many as you like. You can limit who is allowed to comment in both G+ and Blogger. Anyone can follow you in G+ but not everyone has to be allowed to comment.  If you "Follow" a blog on G+ you will get all the updates. There is a widget on the top of my blog for that.

 

That's what G+ is for, really. People comment on blogs on G+ and notification is sent to you by means of a little red button extension in Chrome or your gmail account. It's all linked and will become more so I think.  I see a notification about every post I commented on when someone else comments through G+. 

G+ is doing everything Multiply and FB do because of this integration. I'm not crazy about some G+ features but I wasn't crazy about all of M's either. And I really don't like FB. Google is known for modifying things to meet the demands of their members. I suspect some features will morph over time.

Getting all kinds of questions from all quarters on the features, or lack thereof, of Blogger. I'm definately going to be using Blogger/G+ as my primary blog. I've been experimenting with Blogster and I just don't find it any fun at all. It has basic blog features and comments with a list you can read them from but I'm getting all kinds of glitches. 

I've been using Blogster to see how I like it. I don't really like it at all. I'm not finding a lot to interest me there. Or maybe I'm just bored with the whole thing. But it has issues I don't like.

For instances, I usually can't get in Jilly's blog there. We're on each other's lists and notices arrive but the links don't work. I'm not going to mess with that long... I've already reached my limit, in fact. There are problems with fonts being small and you can't adjust them half the time. Most of the people I've been running into are nice enough but most of the material is not as interesting as the bloggers I ran into here. Could be because it is still small and I don't really know more four or five people. There is limited "decorating" ability and I really enjoyed that. It's rather boring to look at, actually. I can't email post to the blog. I can't cross post to any other blog. This is a great feature to have and multiply and blogger both have it. In fact, with both I could cross post to half a dozen other sites! So this means I can blog on breaks at work even if I can't get into the site. I also get emails of your posts. That is a feature of Multiply and Blogger. I have it turned on for Multiply but not Blogger. I subscribe to a lot of blogger blogs! The reader works better for reading them and the active link allows me to got to it to comment.

Some mentioned you can't get the threaded comment feature in blogger and the responses to your comments. Yes, you can. When you comment on a Blogger post, you just have to "subscribe to the comments". You will get a notification when other people make a comment to a blog you've commented on. IT goes to the email you have in Blogger.

I elect to get things via my gmail because everything is integrated and it just makes it easier since I'm at work 40 hours a week. And even at home it is convenient at times. For a long time I've been using the email features of Multiply and most of you didn't know unless I said so. I even comment on comments via email. I'm writing this post in email in response to comments to another post that I got in email. In Blogger you can't see comments on other blogs without going back to the blog unless you are getting email notifications for that. 

Threaded comments are possible in blogger. Someone mentioned this previously. Under Post and comments > Settings make sure you select "Full" for embedding. Under Settings> Other, Allow Blog feed should be set to "full". 

Instructions here: http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1725597&topic=12456&ctx=topic

To seen comments you leave on other blogs, you have to backlink feature on and you also need to subscribe by email to the comments on the blog you comment on. As with all sites you have to select the features you want to work. The backlink instructions are here: http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42533

Subscribe to comments to get updates: http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79117

Ultimately, you're not going to find every feature you want anywhere. You are also going to have to learn something new.That's hard for most of us. Annoying for all.  Every site has features you're not going to know how to use unless you learn. I've been using Blogger long before 360. There are features available now that were not available when I started there. It has evolved tremendously but it is a stable site that will probably be around when others leave. I should know. I've been on two sinking ships. The fact that Google bought blogger several years ago is good indication of its stability. So, for me, that makes it a good choice, even though I can't do some of the things I want in the way I'm used to doing them. I've compensated for the social interaction by utilizing G+ for hangouts and FB. If more friends sign up, it will become feasible to utilize G+ more than Facebook. My writing group is already using it for meetings. We use FB for group interaction on a group page. So there are ways to link up and make do. 

Unfortunately, it is difficult to start over at anything. Most of us took a long time to set up our page and get it like we wanted it. We liked changing wall paper for each season, hanging photos, videos, and  gifs that reflected our personality. There are places that offer all that without the depth of social interaction found on Multiply. But if you want to keep in touch the way you have here, there are alternatives that make it possible, too. You just won't have as much of the other.

I'm not letting Multiply rob me of the friends I've made and I'm not going to sweat over recreating the wheel. I'm almost done downloading my videos and photos. I should be done in another week. I'm gradually learning more on how to coordinate blogger and G+ to get features as much like the ones I've used here and to utilize the features of FB to my advantage. I'm having a great time in my group page. I'm enjoying G+ and the hangout feature. I have always loved Blogger and more so now. So, all I really have to do is keep up with all the people who have been with me through some wonderful times and who have held my hands through the darkest time of my life. 

We'll all survive. We've done this before. We're pros at surviving sinking ships.

"The greatest blessings are not seen, they are experienced." -- Dixie

A Series of Unforeseen Circumstances

"If things improve with age, then I am approaching magnificence." - From the side of my blue coffee mug.

One Problem Solved!

I'd like one a day, please!

I've been fretting over Multiply closing and not being able to keep up with all my friends in the variety of formats they are choosing. I mean Blogster, Blogger, G+, FB.... my head is spinning and I'm going nuts trying to keep up. Also, I don't want to register with another potential sinking ship. I know things change on the internet. It is in constant flux. But come on... Multiply was a badly thought out decision and they will be the ones to pay. I just don't want to do this again.

So, my solution was right in front of me. RSS feeds. Yes. I went to my Friends on Blogster and subscribed via RSS Feed. I have Google reader in Chrome but you can get it in IE, too. Or you can chose another reader. Doesn't matter. For me, every single blog I subscribe to on Blogger is already out there. Every blog I subscribe to on Blogster via RSS fed is also on the reader. I now have all the blogs of I subscribe to in ONE place. I can read them! For the blogger blogs I have only to click on the title and it takes me right to that posts where I can then comment. I can't seem to get into Blogster that way but I can at least read and when I have time, go comment on the site.

Jilly, I can't get into your second blogger site. Not sure it if matters if you aren't going to be on there but I can get into one of them. Blogster gave me trouble today getting into your site. I tried on clicking on the notice of your post at the top and it would only take me to the home page. You're site was the only one to do that so not sure what caused it.

I feel better. But I also see that I have more blog friends that I realized! Still, it is nice to know I can still read them.

Lost and Found

A lost post.... found in my drafts and written a month ago.


I don't know what it is about a quiet day in the back yard, at least my back yard. The sound of the fountain chuckling, the cicada trilling in the trees, and Sarah's incessant chatter only add to feeling that things are how they should be. It isn't a feeling I've been able to hang onto for very long.

The absence of family to fill the yard is a great sorrow. Sarah is the only child who plays here now. Even she feels the emptiness at times, constantly demanding that I "watch" her. Children like an audience, either of their peers or someone they know who likes them. There is little likelihood that this will change. She is five and  will start school on Wednesday. Instead of my family growing it has all but disappeared. There are days when I would almost think I had no children at all. I spend a lot of days wanting to go home but that is no  longer there. They're all dead. Jerry's death left the greatest hole of all, impossible to fill.

I have been contemplating what I should do. More and more I've thought of quitting my job, selling my house  and leaving. I stay the reason we all do, medical insurance. And I have six years before I'll have 20 years  with my employer. I know that the house will be impossible to maintain on my own but the thought of leaving  the last place I was ever happy is painful. I don't want to go but I don't want to stay. There is nothing here but memories and they are marred. There is not much here that makes me happy anymore.

I've been thinking, maybe too much, that the job doesn't matter, the insurance doesn't matter, the house  doesn't matter. Nothing does. It is a depressing thought, yes, but maybe true. I work to live, nothing more and life is no longer much fun. One is forced to reason if that is the case, they why am I doing what I'm doing? I have no answers.

Maybe I'll feel differently after my trip in September. I'm supposed to go to Gatlinburg with my aunt and uncle. I like being around them. They are the youngest 72 year olds I know. They're younger than me, at
least where it counts. We will spend a week at a cabin. There's a hot tub and the RA and fibro will love that. Sitting on a deck looking at the mountains with no one wanting something sounds good.

I keep asking myself if I was ever a positive person. Did I ever do anything but complain and grumble? I'll have to read back over my blog. It goes back to 2005 and surely I haven't always been this much
of a bummer.

Someone ask me how I was this week and I said I'd been having a rough couple of weeks. That's probably an understatement.

Busy Saturday

I spent the morning doing very little. It took a bit to get moving but once I did I went to lunch at my favorite restuarant and on the way home picked up my granddaughter, Sarah and then we went and picked up Uncle Mike. They came home with me and Mike started on the yard while Sarah and I played Old Maid and Go Fish before getting out and helping Mike take care of the yard work.

Thankfully, the day was mild compared to the triple digit temps we've had all summer. I think it might have gotten to the low 80's today but it was beautiful out and not unplesant.

We pulled weeds and got things cleaned up. The yard actually looks more like a yard at this point. Green grass... although it is spotty.

There is a penalty for this. I shall very likely pay it tomorrow. For those new here, I have rhuematoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. My husband died  January 29, 2009 of a massive heartattack around 3 a.m. during the worst ice storm in memory. So, I have good days and bad ones and there is no way to predict what it will tomorrow will be like but with all the weed pulling I'm not expecting it to be good.

After I took Sarah and Mike home I came back, got a hot shower and have sat and watched Midsomer Murders on Netflix. I think that now it is time for me to turn out the lights and attempt to get a good nights sleep. I'm tired.

Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies

What a week! What a WEEK! 

No other words convey my sense inundation. The work simply piled up because the week before I was pulled off to do that stupid accounting audit for the tax id numbers. If you don't know what I'm talking about you'll have to go to my blogger site - A Series of Unforeseen Circumstances, and catch up. I'm too tired to repeat myself. Thus, this week has been harried, hurried, and horrible. (I'd love to hear Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins say that!) 

I've avoided reading as much news as possible. I've not been on FB much except to check in with some folks. And I've not watched much television... I don't actually have television.. I watch stuff online and feed to the t.v. via HDMI. 

My greatest sin is . . . I haven't been writing. But I have a writer's meeting on Monday night at G+ hangout so they'll berate me or bless me. So, you don't have to bother.

My yard needs cutting. Finally, we had a bit of rain and the yard now flourishes. Oddly, there are not as many weeds... I suspect with better weather it could change. At first there were lots of weeds and plenty of dead grass. I went an pulled them all up. So, at the moment there seems to be fewer weeds. They didn't have time to propagate I suppose. I still have this other weed growing.... well like a weed! I learned it is called purslane and is edible. I have enough to feed a large crowd. I've been pulling it here and there because it pulls up rather easily. But there is so much of it I just don't have the back for it. And I found lots of little black bugs living under it.

Incidentally, if you look up "weeds" on Google... you get some interesting hits. No pun intended.

Today I'm in a rather odd place mentally. I don't actually feel horrible today, or even moderately bad. I have for a couple of weeks now. Jerry's birthday was Monday and that, well, I still have trouble with special days. I never seem to get past it. It is frustrating.

I've signed up with a new social community, Blogster, to follow my Multiply friends. Seems several Multiply folks have arrived here already, despite the deadline of Dec. 1. I'm in the process of downloading my videos and photo albums. Those won't go back up on a blog but rather I'm putting my videos on Youtube and my photos in albums on a photo site. Much easier than having to move house every time. It is going to take me a couple of weeks to download 4 years of videos.

I'm rather not sorry to leave Multiply. Since they shifted to a market focus, things kind of dried up blog wise and there haven't been any new and interesting people coming around. My contact list stayed around the same and I like them but I also enjoyed new people stopping by, sometimes to comment, sometimes to just peek and leave, and sometimes to stick around and become a friend. That just stopped. I believe everything happens in its time so it was just time to move along.

I can't figure out what I want to do this weekend. Clean house, write, read, sew, clean house.... I suspect there's a message there. It doesn't appeal to me. 

This took the whole day to write. A little here, a little there and now, I'm home and contemplating dinner... since it is always for one it isn't going to be very interesting. I'm going to post this on blogger and head for the kitchen. I'll be around here somewhere later.

The State of Happiness

Today is Jerry's birthday. He would have been 63. He could have officially retired. He had so looked forward to it. But at 59 he died. I kept breathing.

Since 2009 I've been through a series of physical, emotional, and mental upheavals that defy description but if you truly want to torture yourself, it's all here in the blog. I lived in a nightmare hell the first year and can't remember huge amounts of time from that year. The second year, I woke up and realized it wasn't a a nightmare at all, it was just hell. The third year I though I was going to be able to crawl out and maybe, just maybe I'd be able to live among other living beings only to fall back into the pit. I am approaching the 4th anniversary and I've begun to question if life after death is even possible. Not my death. His. Is it even possible to push back the darkness and be, if not happy, content?

I've sought to involve myself with people and things and stay busy but honestly, I live in a vacuum where the only time I see or hear from most people in a 50 mile radius is when someone else has a need. Never when I have one. I try to be obliging but the results is I end up running short of energy, time, money, and reciprocation of such. Nearly 4 years later, I still am sitting in my house, alone, in silence and listening to echos. I have no more outside contact that I did the day the last person left after the funeral and the last calls came in. It shocked me to my core then. I don't shock so easily now.

These days, I don't actually think it is possible to be happy.  The people I know personally are miserable. The problem, as near as I can figure, is our concept of happiness is distorted. People seem to think happiness is doing something we enjoy, all the time. Happiness is being in a crowded room with lots of people we like and who like us and having fun, all the time.  Happiness is having the money to buy all we want, all the time.  Happiness is having security, jobs, friends, things. Happiness is stuff. All the time.

You think, when you don't have things, that getting them will fix it. You'll be happy for sure then. I'll get a new house, go to a new school, a new church, move to a new town, meet new people, get a new job. Right. It won't work.

I've got stuff. I'm not happy.

Let me tell you what unhappiness is and maybe that will explain it better. Living without the person who knew everything about me, right down to my birthmark is the most difficult thing I've ever been forced to do. I once said it felt as if I'd had my arm cut off. I was wrong. It is more like having a leg removed at the hip. And they don't sell a prosthetic for it. Someone said "Think about the good times." I don't dare. I can't reclaim them. I can't relive them. And I can't make new ones. I shatter in a billion tiny pieces and have to pick them up. They are made of obsidian glass and flay me.

In all the 35 years of marriage, I distinctly remember being terribly unhappy on many occasions, times when he displeased me and when I displeased him. Of course, we got past them but there were some times that neither of us really got over. We were human after all. We weren't happy all the time and as he grew sicker, we both grew less so. For years, I was so stubborn and demanding. He seldom said no to me and I was cared for and cherished. Right up to the night he dropped dead.

But you know something, right now, this very minute, I would do everything he asked me if he'd just come home and complain about something. I'd be happy! I'd be ecstatic if he stepped into the room and griped about something trivial. If he left the towel wadded on the seat of the toilet, his shorts in the floor, his shoes in the middle of the living room. I would be overjoyed. If he left dirty dishes on the counter.... I'd wash them with a smile. He had a hard time keeping a job the last few years and I didn't know why. He was sick. But today, if he was unemployed and broke and simply wanted to complain about it, I would so listen and put my arms around him and say, "I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another."

The truth is that there is no feeling like being loved, cared for, and made to feel you are the Queen of the Universe or the King. Realistically, it isn't always like that. But knowing it is always there, why, you can live in a hovel and never notice. I've lived in a few! There is nothing that can take the place of looking across the room when you're worried and having someone smile at you. Or lying in the dark staring at the ceiling and having someone squeeze your hand. They don't have to speak. You just know that they just sent you a message. I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another.

Nothing else in the world feels like that.

Jerry, I'd be happy to see you're face smile across the room.

Cluck, Cluck, Cluck

I'm finding the whole Chick-fil-a thing amusing. Yes, really. It is proving that gays are not open minded, beneficent, kind and gentle, non-judgmental people. They are prejudiced.

I mean look at it. It is a bad thing, a crime in fact, to bash gays for their beliefs but it is not a crime to bash Christians for their's. It is a crime to ban gays from any place they want to go but it is ok to attempt to ban a business from operating because the owner doesn't believe in gay marriage and solely for that alone. Not because he had done some heinous act but just because he disagrees with a single group of people who claim everyone is equal!  Never mind that gays are not barred from the business as customers nor as employees if some of the reports are true. So, that is pure prejudice. Hatred for another person or group because of what they believe, how they dress, how the act... prejudice. Wow.

I always wonder if these kind of things ever happened anywhere else because it is just ludicrous. Only when I thought about it it wasn't funny at all. The only similar thing in history I can compare the Chick-fil-a farce to is the Nazi party's reaction to Jewish businesses in the early days before WWII. They burned Jewish owned businesses solely because they were Jewish owned businesses. Some of them had German employees. America should take careful note of this fact alone.

I also noted something else. How stupid is it, in an economy where there ARE NO JOBS, to attempt to close down a very large corporation because someone disagrees with your beliefs? Smacks of prejudice. Never mind that they sell a good product. Never mind they employ thousands. Shut them down because they don't believe the way I believe! How totally and utterly stupid. "Either you will believe what I say or you have no right to run a business." Excuse me?

Today, an elderly lady stopped by my office. She held up her Chick-fil-a bag and grinned at me. "The line was around the building." She laughed. "They forgot that Christians eat."

It stopped me in my tracks. That's true! And we shop a lot of places. We buy clothes. We buy cars. We buy houses, food, and eat in restaurants. We spend lots of money even in businesses that support things we don't agree with and we don't stand on a street corner and whine about it. We shop and go home. We don't even ask what the owner believes or thinks about anything. We order, eat, and go home. 

Yes, yes, there are fringe groups that do whine and make a ruckus and cause offense. We can't stand them either. However, the majority of us don't. Unfortunately, we aren't the ones who sell papers and news spots. The majority of us don't care who's selling that hamburger or pair of shoes. We may not agree with their politics, their religion, their sexual preferences or their hair color...IF we even know it. We just want the shoes. No, really, we don't care. We simply go about our business. But we pray, daily, for the world to change. 

And  we do more than that. We reach out when someone is in need. We feed those who are hungry through soup kitchens and donations to organization that feed the hungry. We don't care who eats the food as long as they have a need. We shelter those who are cold or wet by providing shelters and donations to those who do. We don't care who needs the shelter as long as there is a need. We give aid to the hurting. We do it without requiring anyone convert to our faith or that they repay the help. We do this because we are Christians. 

We live our beliefs. And that is what is so offensive. The fact that no matter how the mob roars we can't be changed. We won't let go despite the pressures brought to bear. We didn't come into the world as Christians. We made a choice to follow Christ, to be Christians. 

Whether Chick-fil-a closes its doors or not will NOT change us. We'll  keep spending OUR money where we want. We will keep buying things we want, where we want, regardless of who stands behind the counter or sits in the corporate office. We'll keep believing what we believe because it is our right to do so, just as it is yours. And you probably won't see us forming mobs, marching in parades and ranting to close your gay bars and nightclubs down or banning them from operating in our cities. We won't approve of them, ever. We understand that you have a right to operate a business, however offensive it is to us. We have the right to disagree with your beliefs just as you do with ours.

No. Your methods are not our style. Instead, we pray for you. 

We just won't buy your chicken.