I KEEP REPEATING MYSELF

I keep repeating myself.

Oh.

I already said that.

And I might have already told you this.  Once I had a dream that me, hubby, hubby mama were performing Silent Night in his church.

I was playing the cello.

Then he bought me a cello that Christmas which I played every day for 2 years.

And then I stopped.

Here are my excuses:

an 80 year old violin teacher with weenie arms broke my A string

I have moved into another house and cellos are persnickity about being moved

My new house is full of insulation dust and sheet rock dust and cellos don't tolerate dust

I have been very very busy trying to do all I do and practicing my cello is #8 on my list

I rarely make it past #6 on any given day

Not to worry.

I love my Cello and I will play it again when I finish my music room which comes right after my chapel

that is unless I go to jail for a dishonest hit counter.

Then I might have to play the air cello.

I already do that.  Have I already told you that?

YET ANOTHER MALADY TO BEFALL ME

Ok you had your chance and not I will do what I have to do. I tried to be nice but with this email you are now aware of the fraud. That means your part of it. That is a felony and it mean prison time. You have till 12 noon tomorrow to put up a honest hit counter or I will let everyone know that your comitting fraud. Ed

This very threatening email came after one that I won't print because it's just too....hateful.

The pitfalls of online news come around now and then and usually, I really take things to heart and try to do a very good and honest, I might add..job of it.

Mr. Ed kind of caught me off guard and this more than likely came in repsonse to his bill he didn't want to remit.  The gist of the story is that he did not believe my online news has 1300 unique readers and 5000 hits a day.  I assure you, I am far too busy editing 4 of them to really even bother looking any more..but since he made me..I'm really quite proud.

With a secure (and honest) site counter in place, these are my top five responses to Mr. Ed.

1. Ed?  Are you off your meds again?
2. Ed?  Do you realize that often people accuse others of things they are doing themselves
3. Ed?  I'm busy
4. Yes Ed...after all these years you are the only one smart enough to finally catch me clicking on my own site 4,950 times a day.
5. Ed...would you like to buy a vowel?

THE MALADY THAT BEFALLS ME

I was recently invited to be a judge for a local UIL event in Headlines.


Cool...except that I really have no expertise in the field, except wait....I have been an editor now for nearly 5 years...ok 1825 days x 10 stories(app.)=

18,825 headlines. (app.)

Hmmm...maybe I do have a clue.


But just in case, I googled it and what I found was very interesting and completely logical.


Keep it simple...so simple in fact that you gear your headline AND your story to the 7th grade reader.


Why?

Because that's the level most people read on.

Who knew?


Does this mean that I no longer need to use my thesaurus? (had to spell ck).  Does this mean that instead of writing  "a malady that befalls us", I can just write "a bad thing happened"?


I love colorful language and I have lots of favorite words that I like to say and see in print.  Writing is fun and writing cleverly is funner.


So...maybe I can just hold myself back on the headlines.

MOVING IN

Ah...moving....

I moved two blocks away.  It might as well have been 2000.

Our daughter bought our house...so the moving has been kind of lackadaisical.

We are living amid serious demolition while rebuilding a dream. 

Email to hubby today:

bad day, no hot water, no workers, no pants, but all can be fixed

Email to daughter today:

Is your house locked?  I'm considering some real pants today and I know right where they are.

Life is very very good indeed...I will wash dishes next week.

WHAT I'M GOING FOR

All those years ago when driving by 822, the signs of spring would unveil her lovely beauty around the curvy sidewalk as the red tulips and grape hyachinth popped up to say "hello".

I always dreamed of a curvy sidewalk and now I have one. But because we moved the old front door and created a new one, the old curvy sidewalk had to go and so did the red tulips and purple hyacinth.

So President's Day 2011, chilly, but not as cold as it could be in February, included planting 100 red tulips and 500 purple hyacinths.

What a fun day in the neighborhood with the most
precious help one could ever imagine.

My hope is that when Betty is older and even driving by herself, she will remember the day she kissed the bulbs and planted them in the frozen winter ground and hoped and dreamed of the day her efforts would yield the most incredible and lovely...

...curvy sidewalk blooming with red and purple with a great big "HELLO".

SOMEDAYS I WONDER

Am I the fuzzy one or the clear one?

PLANT BANDAIDS

Life list # 78...Invent Plant Bandaids.

Yesterday while eating Chinese, I received some very exciting news.

Since I only have one invention sent to myself and saved in my safe deposit box, the news can only be in reference to IT.

You know when you're in your garden and you accidently bump into your most amazing Bachelor Button that you've ever grown in your life and realize that it is now bent and needs to be held up by something that has some kind of healing growth hormone?

Well...that's when you need a plant bandaid.

And now that I know...it has merit... I think I will get on with the invention process.

I have the first step covered...I have mailed a prototype to myself and saved it in my SDB at FNB so no one will be trying to steal my great idea.

FYI...I have warned my children about the contents of my SDB at FNB.

Should give them a good laugh some day.

Maybe at the reading of the will...they will all be wearing some kind of green T with a Poppy's Plant Bandaid logo on it.

DO IT RIGHT

When I was a very little girl, my father taught me a thing among many.  When you sing before the American Flag, you never take your eyes off of it. 

You sing, you learn and know the words, and you sing.  You put your hand over your heart and you don't take your eyes off of it.  You don't look around, you don't laugh, you don't talk, you don't twitter about. You stand there, with your hand over your heart and you sing the words the right way.  And you don't wear the flag.

Period.

When he was 19 he and his twin brother and his two other brothers went off to far away lands to fight a war.  He went to Germany and his twin brother went to France.  He came home to graduate from Texas Tech and his twin is still in France. 

In a cemetery.

Perhaps this is why he felt, and now I feel such a reverence for our flag and what our National Anthem stands for.  His National Anthem and his American flag represent great sacrifice...I can't imagine my father ever twittering about during the singing of it and I can't imagine his hand being anywhere other than placed over his heart.  That image remains strong in my mind.

I think this is a lesson worth keeping and passing on.

SNACKIPOOS

My sister, the one married to my middle brother is an inspiration in life.  I am so glad she belongs to me.

She is a delight.

When we go see her, the first thing we do is gather round her kitchen and she begins to fill her table with all kinds of delicious snackipoos.

But more than the food...it's just the way she says snackipoos...it exactly fits who she is.  She's a snackipoo girl for sure!

And she has inspired me to become one too.  Because of her, I have a snackipoo drawer.  Yesterday, I took a huge bowl of treats from the Mexican isle and invited my carpenters to have a .....

SNACKIPOO!

They knew that word.  I wonder if they've met her.  If they have, I bet they love her like I do!