Election Fraud?

OK, I really was okay with the election... I didn't vote for Obama, but was accepting of the results and just moving on.
  Then I started hearing about voter fraud.  Little snippets here and there from people who'd heard something.  I don't watch the news... but people said it isn't on the news anyway.  Mainstream media isn't reporting this.  Someone said Fox News had something, but I don't watch that.
 

SO, I started googling and getting madder and madder as I found different reports. What started my hunt  was reading THIS from a lady on a list I belong to. She lives in a clearly Republican area of Colorado. I needed to know if this was some little isolated violation.

election fraud

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I have been thinking all day about this. I am really wondering if this was not a real case of election fraud. I have been one of the people working for the Romney campaign in Colorado. I have worked for several weekends and made many calls. I am in a swing county.  I was knocking on doors of undecideds and soft republicans only- Not republicans who vote republican all the time.  I found an overwhelming support for Romney. I was always stunned.      The last Sat. before the election I campassed two whole neighborhoods I must have seen 30 signs for Romney and I only saw one for Obama. I saw so many more bumper stickers for Romney. And oh my- the rallies were so amazingly packed-- and the press always under-reported them.
       So the Sat. night before, when I was turning paperwork in really late- I was talking with the head of the Romney office in Ft. Collins and he was assured of the victory. He said that so far, from mail in ballots, Romney was ahead in our county by 38,000 and there was no way he could lose at this point unless there was enormous turnout on election day from dems (even bigger than 4 years ago) and 60% of independents had to go his way. Anyway- I was poll watching at the biggest place on election day- ( right by CSU- a big dem stronghold). But everyone there was talking about how much lower the election turn out was this day on election day than 4 years ago. We even closed on time- no lines. The election workers were surprised, from their past experience they assumed it would be much longer. They assumed it had to do with more early mail-in voting this year.
        Anyway the next clue is that we are legally allowed as poll watchers to go everywhere and see everything if we are 6 feet away- even seeing voting going on in the booths- but they only let us go in one small corner where we could not see or hear anything. I talked later to other poll watchers at other places and they told the me they had the exact same experiences that day. But this is directly against Colorado law!!!
     Anyway- next clue. In our training we were told about the last election 4 years ago (where the polls were not close before the election like this one) in our county they had buses of blacks from Denver come up and pour into polling places causing chaos and demanding to vote. However this year, in an even closer election- there was absolutely no report of that or other problems like that they had seen 4 years ago- WHY NOT??? 

     Anyway- the more other poll watchers I have talked to, and the more I think about it the more I wonder. Also- there were several calls of machines that were diverting names from Romney to Obama. Now in Colorado, Barack Obama was the first on our voting list, second was Gary Johnson, and in the third slot was Romney. The press said it was just a few machines that were very sensitive to touch- but why would they never shift to Gary Johnson, or from Obama to someone else?
Anyway, here is my case from my "on the ground" experience. Is smells very fishy to me! Has anyone else had similar experiences in their locations?

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Jim said he'd heard ( I don't know where) of people who'd gone to vote and told they were DEAD. "We got your mail-in ballot, it said you were deceased."  "But I never RECEIVED the mail-in, I'm here with ID, I'm not dead, I want to vote!"   Someone had stolen people's mail-in ballots out of their mailboxes, filled them out as deceased, and mailed them back in.    Maybe this balances out the many people (four years ago) that were dead, but somehow managed to vote! 

I did see a vid of a young man who had registered to vote 73 times!!  He, luckily, was caught and being charged for it.  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/02/claims-increasing-switched-votes-in-ohio/ (he is 43 seconds into it.)  

   Then I read about the absolute AMAZING numbers in Cleveland, where Romney got ZERO votes, or one or maybe two.  Not in a few precincts, but in over a hundred??  That seems statistically impossible.  

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/election-fraud-obama-won-more-than-99-percent-of-the-vote-in-more-than-100-ohio-precincts

Now, if you get a really amazing turnout on voter day, I think you are talking 60-70%, right?  So to get 100% voter turnout, well that would be just unbelievable, right?

So then tell me how a county in Florida could get OVER 100%  Um, you can't.  Yet precinct after precinct in St Lucie did just that....  147%, 125%, 158%...  it goes on and on.  That is IMPOSSIBLE without FRAUD!!  

http://www.slcelections.com/Pdf%20Docs/2012%20General/GEMS%20SOVC%20REPORT.pdf

http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/the-big-list-of-vote-fraud-reports/     This one has a long list of reports from around the nation.    the next one as well.   

http://marketdailynews.com/2012/11/13/22-signs-that-voter-fraud-is-wildly-out-of-control-and-the-election-was-a-sham/

I hope they make people show valid ID, not some xeroxed utilities bill, like the people BUSED IN FROM Chicago were using to register to vote, then grumbling they had to hurry and catch their long bus ride back to the city.  

A lot of people are grumblling about this, we want this looked into.  This is NOT supposed to be the country where this happens, we are the ones that go to OTHER countries and try to help them get their own fair and clean elections.  

Apparently now the thugs are here

Nana Bern and Pops

I just had the sweetest memory, of being at my grandparents' house, triggered by the smell of toast finishing up in the toaster.

      I can picture their little kitchen in Downey, California. We kids - either me and my brothers, or else my cousin Jeff and I - would wake and find them already up and making breakfast. On a chilly morning they would have the white stove open to warm the kitchen, I can still even smell it all: The gas from the oven, the wheat toast they would make, with the tiny Pepperidge Farm loaves they preferred. They kept the toaster by the table, not over on the counter. That way the toast was made just when you wanted to eat it.

Their windows by the table had a view of the small side yard and a fence, but what made it interesting was the bird feeder Pops had hung out there. All the birds would join us for breakfast and we could watch them all coming and going, vying for the little bit of remaining seed.

Some mornings Pops would make his famous pancakes. They were light and fluffy and HUGE - he pulled out the electric skillet and would make a big plate-sized disk! I don't remember their taste as much as my awe at how gigantic they were.

What makes me so emotional when remembering these things? Sure, I miss my grandparents, and I truly believe they exist in the next realm and I'll see them again. But this emotion I feel right now - I think I'm missing more the whole childhood experience, the warm kitchen and the SAFE and loving feeling I had as a little girl there. We had so much fun with them, and we knew they loved us. 

    They made things for us, Pops could make ANYTHING... there was a huge set of wooden blocks we could use to spread all over the patio, making roads and buildings. He built us a couple of small platforms up in the backyard tree, too. We could climb up there, eat lunch looking over the big rose garden.

Pops had an old typewriter he let us type on, and we would just peck away, making long paragraphs of gibberish. We would take them out to him to read, and he COULD! (In some asian-sounding language.) We loved playing with their wooden abacus, and I knew how to use it to add and subtract.

And they took us to the best places! Their park with its huge timber climber was SO FUN!

When they moved to Newport Beach, there were new adventures at the beach, or taking the ferry over to Balboa Island. There was a public lagoon we could go swim in , with a large dock we liked to swim out to. But the big challege was to swim with Pops clear across to the other side! We felt priviledged to be considered old enough to do that with him.

They say smell triggers strong memories, and as I walk through that little house in my mind, I can easily smell the dove soap Nana Bern used in the bathroom, and the sharp sulfur smell from the matches they kept in there.... from the days before Glade. We kids loved to occasionally sneak in to light one or two just for the fun of it.

And tooth powder. Does ANYONE remember that? We were instructed to pour a little into our palms and with a little water, grind it around with our toothbrushes to make a watery paste. I can still taste the Colgate! 

 

Google tells me those powders are still around. Here is a link to a very informative blog entry regarding current tooth powders I just found... apparently even the best toothpastes can't beat the great herbal tooth powders you can find. http://vintagenostalgia.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-i-threw-away-my-toothpaste.html

I think I'll go investigate further.

 But I seriously doubt that even if I once again swirl my own toothpaste in the palm of my hand, I'll be able to recreate the wonder and joy of doing it at my grandparents'. It's been a wonderful (and sort of sad,) morning remembering it all, but there's really no going back.  

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O.S.I.F.

Well, here we are at the end of the week, and I know what you are
thinking... TGIF!!


All over the country people are excitedly making plans for Friday night,
or the whole weekend - we are all so glad the workweek is over.


But for some good friends, it is a different scenario. They don't look
forward to Friday night whatsoever. It is the night they run over to their
ailing parents to take care of them, and it is not a fun event. In fact,
it is so maddening and uncomfortable and exasperating, they begin dreading
it Thursday night and have trouble even sleeping. Then a pall hangs over
their entire Friday, it makes for a long day. When I realized they were
NOT excitedly declaring TGIF like the rest of us, I coined OSIF, and it
stuck.


So what could be so hard about tending the old folks? you might wonder.
Well, when they go, they cook meals, clean the house, bathe Mom and Dad.
It could be an enjoyable task for some, if the players were all normal
folks, but this is not THAT family.


Dad had a stroke, a heart attack in February, and now has been diagnosed
with lung cancer. He is cranky, uncooperative, unappreciative, and
downright mean spirited. Mom had a heart attack in January and now has
Alzheimers. That makes it easier to deal with her abusive husband who
continues to steal her money and run up the charge cards gambling online.
MANY thousands of dollars have gone to that, and now the high interest on
those cards sucks any and all income- thus no money available for nursing
care.


Enter the loving children.


Well, it's true they love Mom and Dad as children are supposed to, but the
family dynamic with 4 siblings and old, dying, needy, verbally abusive
parents is hardly a lovefest, especially on Friday nights. It is a 5
hour-long argument/fight that at times has come to blows. There are also an
involved brother, and somewhat involved sister as well. Said sister was a
nurse at one point, so she convinced Mom and Dad they could stay in their
home and the kids would be able to help out. (much to the continued
protestations by the other siblings.) My friend and his wife committed to
coming Friday nights, and they are very faithful about it. The sister is
rather crazy - she went postal LITERALLY not too long ago at work, at the
post office, flipping off her boss and then trying to run him over with the
postal jeep, then threatening suicide and driving up towards Camelback. The
police interceded just before she drove the jeep over a cliff. True story.


Her sketchy involvement Friday nights was really only making it all that
much harder, so it's somewhat of a relief that she no longer comes over to
help.


So the saga continues: The siblings don't agree at all on how to care
for Mom and Dad, my friends continue their filial duties, and the parents
refuse to get more professional help. Earlier this week Dad went into the
hospital with pneumonia, in complete denial as to how close to death he
most likely is.


And another OSIF is upon us!

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Wedding Dress Finale

Sooooo, the wedding dress summer is at an end, I've made both dresses, both brides are happily married.  Their marriages were only hours apart, so I only saw Danielle's dress 'in action'.  She loved it, I'm happy to report.

It was no easy feat, creating that dress in just 2 weeks.  And just as I predicted, I was sewing up until the last minutes.  There were a few set-backs, and I was rescued more than once by Tami Atkinson and her masterful tailoring skills.  It was she who came back at 6:30 as I was sewing on the last hook and shooed me off to shower, while bride, sisters, grandchildren et all were running around curling hair and getting ready - it seriously reminded me of Kevin and his family scurrying around the house dressing and finding bags because they were about to miss their flight to France, leaving him Home Alone.

 Tami sewed the hook and ironed the dress, and Dani made it on time to her Open House.  Whew!!

 Next time I will insist the bride has to be in the same place as I when I am sewing her dress... squeezing fittings into 2 days makes it a real nail-biter.

Now, don't they just look so happy!!

Ants Marching

(If I had music linked here, you'd be listening to Dave Matthews right now.)


This morning's walk with Nichole was SO humid - it felt like Florida out there, after yesterday's torrential deluge.  And may I just say, if you were glad of the rain, you can thank me.  I deep watered the other day and that instituted the Murphy's law of watering your grass - the rule akin to the one, "If you wash your car, it will soon rain."  The rains we've had the last few days have been wonderful.

(I further discovered there is apparently a Murphy's law of  garden hoses stating something like, "If there is a split in the hose, the resulting stream will be aimed directly at the person who is turning on the faucet." True story.)

But besides sodden lawns and the seeds and leaves which pooled wherever the sudden rivers took them, we liked watching the ants again.  What caught our eye particularly was a group carrying their eggs to another location.  We are guessing they had a cave-in someplace down below and were moving the nursery.  I've seen it before, the long line of little black or brown critters carrying the starkly white eggs.  We traced them a  couple of yards to a spot under a bush.
Maybe it is simply to another part of their formicary? (I love that word.)   What makes it all so fascinating is the communication involved.  Who tells whom to move, how is that info spread??  How do they find that new home and then tell the others?  Personally, I could sit and watch them quite a while, they're just so interesting.   If the kids had been here, I probably would have come home and taken them over to observe with me.

Oh, and I tried to find an image of ants carrying their eggs, but nothing that was similar to what we saw.  BUT, I know you'll love going to look at this link, about the girl who had ants coming out of her eye!!

http://www.onlineweblibrary.com/blog/?p=313

Wedding Dress Summer

"Wow, I CAN NOT believe you can MAKE a DRESS!!"

That's what I heard from a visitor a couple of weeks ago, a young lady who apparently never learned to sew.  

I write this post between dresses - TWO wedding dresses I am sewing this summer.  Actually, the first one is done and out the door, we only have left to make a sash for it.  The bride is deciding if she wants to add color or to maybe use her lace there...  She seemed surprised I wanted her to take it away after the final fitting, but I really did, I wanted to KNOW it was actually done. Complete. Finis. Whew!!  

She is Christine Lillywhite, a friend of Chelsea's.  She is getting married the same day as our Danielle - August 18th.  That is in only THREE weeks from now.  (I think my shoulders just tensed in anxious anticipation) 

I agreed to make the dress for Christine only because she really wanted it very simple, and I had many weeks to do it.  And obviously, it had been so long since I'd sewn anything for anyone else, I'd forgotten how anxious I get when sewing things for others. 

But I've survived, the dress is done, the bride used the word PERFECT more than once!  It is what she wanted (even after totally having to redo the blousy top that looks WAY different on the pattern picture than it turned out in real life.  But I remade it to better reflect what she was wanting, and she's pleased. )

Danielle also wants me to make her dress, and that will be a lot more fun,  even with a little less time to complete.  She won't get here until next weekend, giving me 2 weeks to properly finish it.  But I think I'll just start cutting and sewing ahead of her, going by her measurements.  Her dress is quite different from the first one, but she also wants it fairly simple.  If either had demanded rows and rows of lace or miles of pearls and beading, it would have been a show-stopper.  This is going to work.

And it's time to truly start delegating all the wedding details to others so I can only be worrying about this dress those last few days.  

Heheh, like that will happen.

(and the photos were taken by my assistant, Jemma.  I handed her the camera and asked her to take a few of me in action, and there were a few decent ones. She also took about 4 dozen photos of the dog, the stairs, the dog ON the stairs.... most are blurry and shaky and totally unrecognizable.  But 6-yr-olds work for Popsicles, I really can't complain.  )

  

  

Patriotic Ants

This has been a great Fourth, well maybe here because it was overcast and a little rainy now and then.  For others where there are fires, not so much fun.

But anytime we have rain here it is cause for celebration.  It seems to have cleared out in time for tonight's fireworks.  This morning it didn't look as promising, it was quite cloudy.  It felt WONDERFUL to walk in the overcast, humid air this morning (at 6:30 it was 79 and sprinkling now and then.)

Nichole and I took a long walk around the neighborhood, talking to friends and watching the scouts set the flags out on the roundabouts at 5 intersections.  They do this every national holiday.  Well, several of them, anyway... Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day. They are good to get up early to do this on a day they could be sleeping in.


One thing we noticed today that was different than on other days is the way the ants were acting.  Usually we   see several different colonies on our walk.  Most of the time they are in a line hurrying someplace - toward food, most likely. They must tell each other there is something on down the trail, with thousands of them going SO fast back and forth.  We once saw them making short work of a bird carcass. YUM!


   Often they are working together in a different way, cleaning house we call it.  They come out of the mouth of their formicary with a tiny pebble and drop it, about an inch or inch and a half away. Then they go right back underground. Those little mounds of brown are easy to see. We haven't figured out what triggers that, and there are often several little hills in one area, presumably all from one colony.  Perhaps the nearby sprinklers made a mess of their passageways and they need to recreate their little tubes.  It does make us wonder just how far all those tunnels are running under our feet... like do they go under the sidewalk and grass and street?  A few feet away, or several yards?


Today it was another thing altogether, which we've seen only occasionally.  The ants, in colony after colony, were scattered.  ALL OVER the sidewalk!  There was no rhyme or reason, no one was headed anywhere at all.  There was no line to follow, no pattern.  Just ants and more ants all over our path. We couldn't really step over them as we walked, we were on top of them each time before we even realized it.  


Since we saw this about 5 times during our walk, we attributed it to the weather. That was the only thing that was different.  It was cloudy and humid, sprinkling a little bit.  Why that would send them out like this, we couldn't surmise.

Nichole decided they knew it was a holiday. After all, they weren't hurrying to get food, and they weren't cleaning out the house...  they must have been celebrating.

 "They are Patriotic Ants!"

Priesthood Blessing - a Non-Mormon View

I love that my husband honors his priesthood!  I love that I can ask for and receive a blessing from him when I'm sick, or upset, or just really need comfort.  I love that God has given this power to the earth, and that his worthy followers can bless their families with it.  We have seen profound results from the laying-on of hands.

A non-Mormon observed this and reported it during WWII

During World War II, in the early part of 1944, an experience involving the priesthood took place [and] was related by a correspondent—not a member of the Church—who worked for a newspaper in Hawaii. … He and other correspondents were in the second wave behind the marines at Kwajalein Atoll. As they advanced, they noticed a young marine floating facedown in the water, obviously badly wounded. The shallow water around him was red with his blood. And then they noticed another marine moving toward his wounded comrade. The second marine was also wounded, with his left arm hanging helplessly by his side. He lifted up the head of the one who was floating in the water in order to keep him from drowning. In a panicky voice he called for help. The correspondents looked again at the boy he was supporting and called back, “Son, there is nothing anyone can do for this boy.”

“Then,” wrote the correspondent, “I saw something that I had never seen before.” This boy, badly wounded himself, made his way to the shore with the seemingly lifeless body of his fellow marine. He “put the head of his companion on his knee. … What a picture that was—these two mortally wounded boys—both … clean, wonderful-looking young men, even in their distressing situation. And the one boy bowed his head over the other and said, ‘I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the priesthood, to remain alive until I can get medical help.’” The correspondent concluded his article: “The three of us [the two marines and I] are here in the hospital. The doctors don’t know [how they made it alive], but I know.”  (the above story was related in Conference by president Thomas S Monson. ) 

The hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessing are on many Jewish graves, this one in Germany.  The Priesthood was on the earth from the beginning.  

 I'm grateful it has been restored to the earth in the latter days.

* The day after I posted this, the abscess behind my crown suddenly flared into action and I was in great, throbbing pain.  I took amoxicillin knowing it would be a day before that would do a thing.  It was late and I didn't want to take the pain meds, but I did ask Jim for a blessing before I went to bed.
I slept just fine and woke to no pain!  Still swollen and plenty of pressure, but only mild pain, I can survive till surgery after the weekend!  

Back Off, Avengers!

I have the privilege of taking Beth out to a variety of venues, like swim parties, Karaoke, bingo, a dance every month, and MOVIES, lots of MOVIES. All the kid movies as well as the majority of the popular ones.  I should own stock in Harkins' popcorn, we eat loads of it.  With butter ("Layer it, please!")   Yes, I know it isn't really butter, it's a magical, gacky, oily concoction, but somehow it's really tasty.  And it's free. (we get the popcorn cards, then upgrade to a size we can refill the next time.  And then we even bring some home for Beth's sister, Sally.  Win-Win!!)

And Beth and I go to one or two movies almost every week.  She LOVES her movies and it is so fun to watch they way she interacts - to her it is real (for those two hours) and she is living it.  The more emotion, the better. She especially likes contention.  Fighting, arguing, VILLAINS!!!  She always sides with the villains.  And the handsome fellow is always HER man - she (quietly) shouts at the screen, "Hands off him, lady, he's mine!" 

And she talks to the screen quite a bit, she rocks forward in her excitement as things heat up, and she calls out to the screen - but she knows she'll get in trouble talking in a movie, so she tries to keep it quiet.  And she further picks up her popcorn bag to the side of her face, as a barrier between us so I cannot hear her.  I've learned to pick seats away from other folks so she doesn't disturb them.  She keeps the volume just to a level that won't get her in trouble.  

Even when there isn't any real conflict, she creates her own.   Someone in the movie will yell, "Run, kid!" as a boy is trying to get away from the baddies, and Beth calls out, "DON'T run!"  

My favorite lately happened while watching "What to Expect When You're Expecting".

There was no conflict, no enemies, no baddies.  (she liked it anyway.)  So while a baby was being delivered and the Doc announced to the mom, "It's a girl!" ,  Beth under her breath says, "It's a BOY!"    She always has to be contrary.

She LOVES superheroes.  So we've seen Iron Man, in all his  incarnations, and Batman (Next one comes out July 20th, she tells me all the time)   Spidey is going to be here 3rd of July, I just asked her.  She has our summer planned! Next week it'll be a rocking Tom Cruise.

So of course, she talked about AVENGERS for a year.  Because we watch all the movies and see the trailers over and over and over again, for as long as they are promoting their movie.  Avengers has several superheroes, we were there opening day, I think.  And then we saw it a second time.  I paid attention to her this time (it was my THIRD time watching it,) and she was as entertaining as what was on the screen. It is her absolute involvement in it all that makes it so  great to watch.  (and she might be integrating it and deciphering it for an hour or two afterwards, her processing takes time.)  


This second showing we stayed through the credits (she usually likes to,) to see the little trailer tag at the end.  This only was a few seconds long, but showed a red-faced, menacing Alien who will be the next Villain. Oooh, a menacing, villainous VILLAIN!!

 Beth was totally there, calling out loudly, "Back off, Avengers, BACK OFF!!"

They call me Mellow Yellow

So I decided to paint my hall bathroom, it still had the original 12 yr-old paint, and the blue and red and yellow flowers Danielle and I painted in there way back when she was a pre-teen. It was time for a change. The bedroom next to it is turquoise blue (soon to be a pale seafoam green,) and I thought a really pale yellow would look nice in there.
Yellow is my least favorite color, but over the years we have painted yellow walls. It seems to be a good one to go along with other colors. I can't wear yellow clothes, but my walls look fine in it.
     Well, standing in the paint aisle in Home Depot, I discovered about a zillion yellow choices: Vanilla Milkshake, Morning Sunshine, Zinnia Gold, Lemon Drops, Banana Split, Cornsilk, Mellow Yellow, Lemon Souffle, Lemon Poundcake, Lemon Sorbet ... I was getting hungry, and realized one's decision might be made simply by virtue of whether they've had their breakfast yet or not.
      I picked out many paint chips - darker than I wanted, lighter, as yellow as I thought I might be able to handle. Do I want it lemony? Not sure. Greenish? NO! And definitely not heading over to honey or orange. My head was swimming in all the choices. I tipped the little cards, carried them under a different light, tilted them - they kept changing shades... this was not easy.
      I said hello to a little dog in a shopping cart, and his owner leaned over to be friendly. She looked at the mass of yellow in my hands and asked, "So what are you painting?"
 "A hall bathroom."
 "Oh. Well, yellow... won't that make people think of urine? Hey, Bob! She's thinking of painting her bathroom YELLOW!"
 A scruffy mate walked over, "Oh. Isn't that a little like urine?"
      Why thanks ever so much. Howsabout you folks take Bruiser there back to your double-wide and let me make my decision!
      But now I was a little unsure of this. I decided I needed a daughter's opinion. Luckily Chelsea answered her phone and was quick to reassure me. "Nah, Mom. Yellow will be fine. No one's going to think of urine when they walk into the bathroom. Well, unless they already WERE thinking of urine."
     I finally picked a not-too-pale shade of Moonlight and hurried over to the paint guy before I changed my mind again.
     A week later I started pouring paint into the tray, realizing this does look lemony. It looks positively yummy, like some lemon custard filling in a cake. I realized the paint color name choosing people have to be cautious about their naming. Lemon sorbet evokes a lovely sentiment, lemon yogurt not so much. Urine might be descriptive enough, but it will never appear on a paint chip, pretty sure. And I realized even custard might not make it to a paint color chip - there are probably others who, like me, were big Beatles fans and could quickly start humming in their head, "Yellow matter custard, dripping from a ..." Well, you can read the rest here I am the Walrus

My bathroom is all Moonlit now and ready for a new rug and some little hand towels .  Soon I may tackle the bedroom next to it, the one that will be pale green.  Today I got those paint chips.  How do these sound?  Envious Pastel, Misty Lawn, Misty Hillside, Misty Afternoon... those don't sound like Arizona colors, do they? There are Margarita and Olive Martini (someone was thirsty THAT day!)   Toadstool, Trailing vine, and my two favorites - Lazy Caterpillar and Jade Bracelet.  

This is gonna be tough to decide!  Maybe I should head back to Home Depot and see if Bruiser and the folks are there,  I'm sure they have an opinion about painting a room green.

Sounds Like...

I love to learn word origins, and also am intrigued at how thoughts and actions and emotions are portrayed on the written page, without coming out and describing in more words what is being felt or conveyed. If someone shrugs their shoulders, that means they are indifferent or don't know, right? I always thought if it said someone answered with a shake of the head, that meant NO, and nodding was how you showed agreement, although some writers have said, "He shook his head in agreement." Maybe in another culture that is how it's demonstrated.

Then there is the written interpretation of sounds we make to express a variety of emotions or comments or answers

I think the origin of all these words is pretty obvious - they are actually just the printed interpretation of sounds. I've tried to remember what I've read over the years:

NUH uh! uh-uh, and uh-huh are all similar when you look at them, but all 3 have different meanings

And further there is uh-oh.

I remember teaching that one to Danielle when she was a baby, sitting in her high chair and spilling something... it opened up a new avenue of communication for her since MOST of her toddler life was a series of uh-ohs!

And of course, she'd already mastered wahhhhh

She also taught me meh. These people have used it in a large way to express their lack of Christmas excitement.

More: Arrgh Ergh grrrrr ugh!

When I met Reeder, he was still saying "eh", having lived in Canada for 2 years. The downeast Maine version is 'ayuh', which means "Right", I think. I really wish I could find a soundbite to stick in here for that. I looked a wicked long time but didn't get anywheyuh.

I was going to write 'Oy', from down under. But that's actually a word, right?

Here are some more -- Er, ahem, oh! Ah, aha, phew... different than whew - probably depends on context.

Oooh is very different from ewww.

pffft was written to me recently, to dispute my interpretation of Leah's movie rating skills.

That might be how one prints a 'raspberry ' as well.

mmmm ... huh?... mmm hmm ... hmm ... vroom

zzzzz psst shhh P.U. ow

Then there are the obvious animal sounds, and various countries have their own versions of how these sound and how they should be written.

bow-wow, mew, meow, moo, ribbet, baa (sheep) maa-a-a (goat)

Oh, and then I've nearly forgotten the ways we write out laughter...

tee hee, ha-ha, Santa's Ho-ho-ho.

And finally I cracked up the way my friend, Michelle, interpretted Popeye's laugh in our texting exchange. This occurred the morning after we'd been to dinner together, where George and I had a brief arm-wrestling match.

ME: "So how's your man G's arm today, after last night's throw-down at the dinner table?"

Mic: "Well, he is still pumping his fist in the air, proclaiming, "She didn't take me! Meet me in Petaluma for the wrestling championship!"

ME: "Ha ha I think I would stand little chance against those Popeye-like 'muss-kells'"

Mic: "Ah gakakakaaaa ....it's the spinach", he says, "and that's why you should eat vegetables"

ME: "Ummmm, He does have a point there. ;c) "

Mic: "He loves the concession! He says, "That's your Kryptonite, Reeder!"

Hmmmm.... I wonder how much time I have before Petaluma.

Ah gakakakaaaa

.

What's in a Name? pt 1

When my friends traced back their family name line clear back to Shakespeare, I was a little jealous - it's always fun to have someone famous on your line. Somehow a really famous playwrite has way more class than the Hershey's my Pennsylvania line goes back to.

When hunting past names, it helps a LOT when some mother picked names that were not the same as everyone else's, especially when they are at least not the same as the cousins.... it is not at all helpful when there are so many Peter and Henrietta Jensens; and then when they want to keep certain names in the family, all the siblings name their children the same, so all the cousins in that county end up being named the same, and when someone like me comes along 150 years later, it is NOT easy to ferret out which is which.

My step-brother's mom's last name was POE. And who is the most populart Poe we know? You would not believe how many Edgar Allen Poes there are born in this country... probably still being named that! And he did not have any sons of his own, these are other distant relatives.

Naoma named her children interesting names - Doleski, Almira, Parmenus, Lucella and Reiabel. Those are definitely easily findable later.

Spurgeon W Bright was b in Nebraska in 1894... that name just cracked me up.

My 3rd ggrandfather Zera Johnson was fairly easy to trace. So was Wellington W Wilson.
Tamsel Hahn had a niece named after her. I never could figure out where it came from... Wiki searches only come up with a big Tamsel estate, in Poland. But those two in my great grandfather's family were well loved women. (but you should see how 'clever' the census takers get when spelling their name, it was just too weird.)

Naming trends are pretty interesting. Naming one's children after presidents and other popular statesmen was quite the thing back in the 1800's, so there are many Benjamin Franklins out there... B F Johnson, Ben F Morris... Also George Washington Whatever.

You'll get a family of bible lovers in the early 1800's and before. The puritans seemed to like those, plus adjectives that connoted what they hoped their child would be, perhaps? Thankful comes to mind, I"ve seen that many times.

Here are some others: Remember Allerton, Love Brewster, Humility Cooper...
Wrestling Brewster... more description than hopeful prophecy, I'm thinking there.
Oceanus Hopkins and Seaborn Cotton were both born en route to Plymouth.

The girls' names seemed less standard... or at least they didn't really 'stick' like the biblical names the boys were getting. Dorcas was VERY popular, as were Honor, Hope, Jerusha, and Kezia.

Other odd ones: Loveday Scantlebury was born in 1794, really distinctive.
Barzilla was WAY more popular than I ever imagined - so many of them came up when I did a first name search on the index.
Revilo was one of my family names, so I did a first name search for that, it is so unique... NOT! It was really popular. I keep picturing a magician or a character out of Harry Potter. It took me a while to figure out WHY it was so popular.... reverse the letters!

Anderville just seemed really strange; I laughed when I saw Lilley Flower, md to Arthur Flower... (I wonder if they named their daughters Rose and Daisy.)

Babies are often just called 'baby' on many census, even when they were 4, 5, 6 months old. Perhaps they were sickly and not expected to live.... I'm not really certain why they weren't named, but it wasn't uncommon to see that. (and more than once I've found someone's name who had just died, too.)
So I was REALLY distraught when I read on the census back in 1870 - Baby Wise 'dead on ice', I was picturing this poor family, they've got the baby laid out in the parlor there, in the summer, trying to keep it 'fresh' for the funeral maybe? So sad. Then I scanned further over to the right and realized the scribe had written it on the wrong line.

Baby Wise was just fine!! The next fellow "Deals in Ice" for his occupation. WHEW!!


I'll leave you with one last one for now, I found her when I was looking for Charlotte Duncan, my grandmother's great aunt. She (unfortunately) married Jacob Butt and they moved to Oregon.
I did an index search... she was sometimes Emma (her middle name,) and sometimes Lottie.
I laughed literally out loud when I found this Charlotte, the wife of Samuel.


She was on the census as Lotta Butt.

the end.
(of part one)

A New Name

Saturday I stopped in really briefly to say hi to the little Jones girls and found my granddaughters all have NEW names.

First, as Whitney came up and called me 'Cookie', the nickname she just loves to call me, I asked her what I can call HER.

She looked up at me with this big grin: "Brittney!"

"Oh, you are Brittney now?"

"Yep." Just then Courty-court came by.

"And what do I call you?"

"I'm Juliet," she said with a shy grin.

And from the other room I heard, "And I'm Cami."

Jamie came running in and showed me something she'd written her new name on, as proof.

Just then there was crying from the back bedroom and Aubrey said "Sounds like Addie-poop is ready to get up from her nap."

As I was picking her up out of her crib I told her,

"I'm thinking you didn't get much input into choosing YOUR new name!"

For more delightful photos, Aubrey has updated and her blog has pics of them jumping on the new trampoline. Even Mom and Dad. A Mother Heart

Brilliant Autism

I love that I have several autistic friends. They tend to teach the rest of us a variety of lessons, like patience, acceptance, and thinking outside of the box, to name a few. Most aren't socially 'normal' in their interactions with people, which comes across as unfriendly much of the time... the lack of eye contact, the poor interaction and difficulty in reading our facial expressions. For many, the world looks and sounds way too loud and fast for their senses. I think it's like their brain is taking in way more than the rest of us, but not able to process it, so they end up shutting out a lot of it.

But it's not that they are not smart or that they are unsocial; they just interpret, and interact with, the world differently than the rest of us 'normal' folks.

I met Anthony at the ARC when I started working there. He is a very handsome 30 yr old, and such an interesting person to be with. He might have some social skills he needs to polish, but he has an absolute genius for remembering everyone's age and birthday. Even if we haven't talked in over a year, he remembers not just MY age and birthday

("You just had your birthday, you are 57 now, right Robin?" "Yes, thanks so much for remembering, Ant.")

he also remembers Jim's birthday - and I don't think he's even met him.

Kathleen just remembers facts about people and thinks about them a lot, so she always has a whole passel of questions to pepper you with when she next sees you. Like when I went out of town - when I got back she immediately asked all the questions she'd thought about while I was away: Did I drive or did I fly? Did I take a van to the airport? Did I stay in a hotel? Did I get to go to the beach? Where did I eat? She will keep asking until you tell her that's enough questions for today. And sometimes she's not done, so it's painful for her to have to drop it. (She stayed a week with a friend of mine, who told me later, "Robin... she is just like RAINMAN!")

My friend Kraig remembers calendar items - he's got all the birthdays down and remembers what day of the week they will be on, as well as the whole Suns schedule for the season. He remembers details about the various players, too. But his way of telling these facts comes out randomly as the thoughts jet through his mind. I will hear about his father's softball team winning, then that his mother made cookies, then something about the new fellow just traded in from Boston, then about some singer who was on Ellen 'Generous.

I think the really amazing folks who've uncovered their true genius, whom we call savants, are just the most fascinating.

Like this fellow, Stephen Wiltshire, who can remember a WHOLE CITY as seen from the air, and then draw it all out in a huge, accurate, detailed mural. That is Rome, above. Our minds can't even comprehend the brilliance of it, it seems hard to accept that the human brain could even do such a thing, but he's a walking, talking example that can't be denied.

Today I watched this little vid - I think it is from 2010, a 60 Minutes report on Derek in England, who is an astounding musical prodigy. If you have 14 minutes to spare and watch it, you will come to appreciate what amazing creatures we humans can be. He's got the very best of certain things just incredibly concentrated and magnified. Derek Paravicini

And it's amazing all the more since he was born premature and extremely tiny, AND blind... yet he has amazing abilities and qualities we wish more humans had.
His dad offers in the piece,

"They say 'Good comes out of bad.' Well it certainly has in Derek's case. Without knowing it, he's done more good than any of us will ever do."
And while I know what he means in that little colloquialism, I don't think you could, in retrospect, find any bad here whatsoever.

"Y'all come back now, hear?"

I remember hearing that phrase at the end of every episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Jed and Granny and the rest of them hill folk spoke their hillbilly-speak and we just all thought it was so cute to be so hick. I wonder what folks from the south thought - like were they appalled that the rest of the country would think ALL southerners were that uneducated and unsophisticated. (or did they shrug and say, "I don't see what the big deal is?")

They never make it clear where the family came from, just some back hills in Missouri or Arkansas. They reference a lot of towns in Missouri, and that is where the producer is from. Lest you think I'm some Clampettphile, here is where I found all that out, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Beverly Hillbillies

It's the word Y'ALL that led me to thinking about the Clampetts and all them backwoods, illiterate hicks. The word just SOUNDS like all that to people who don't live in the south. But when we moved to Florida, it was the first thing we absorbed, because one hears it EVERYWHERE. You can't help but start saying it. It is convenient, your mouth has less to do... and for that matter, your brain has less to compose.

Instead of "How are all of you and your family doing?" you can simply ask "How're y'all today?" I've even heard, "How's y'all's dog?" which seemed an improper use. But hey, it got the point across quickly. And that's what language should do, I suppose.

So that leads to my TRUE original thought in all of this: Is it Ya'll or Y'all? I thought it HAD to only be y'all and was being misspelled the second way. Then I read this: Y'all or Ya'll

and had to rethink my initial conclusion. I'm thinking now that both spellings are correct. And since I no longer live in the south, I'll leave it to my friends to offer up opinions.

Which makes me wonder, in Texas do they say, "Adios, y'all?"

Hair Today...

When I was a little girl I had white-blonde hair, and Jim did as well. Yep, we were towheads.

(Do you know where that term came from? When making Flax into cloth, the short fibers that need to be removed from the long threads are called tow, and apparently are really white. So blonde colonial children got the nickname towheads, and it's stayed in our vocabulary.)

Many women wish they could keep their blonde locks, and pay a lot of money to keep the dream alive - and Clairol and L'Oreal just love them for it. When I was about 9 my mother taught me to help her frost her hair, a process that involved a shower cap with holes all over it. I would stick a crochet hook through and pull out strands of hair which she could then bleach. It is a MUCH more sophisticated process now.

(I considered inserting a photo of a head of hair with several dozen foil pieces sticking up all over, but I think everyone pretty much knows just how dorky that looks.)



But when we were girls, we couldn't just run get highlights like you can now. We resorted to using whatever product we were told would work. I remember putting lemon juice on it when out in the sun, but that didn't seem to lighten it much; tho the way it turned our hair to straw told us it was doing something.

I got my hair done the other day, and during a discussion of such coloring techniques, my hairdresser, Judy, confessed she'd tried all the same weird things girls try to make their hair lighter. She laughed as she remembered how she and her sister had an epic fail when they experimented on their little sister. They'd bought Sun-In, and not wanting to risk their own hair, they took her outside to spray it on her BROWN hair. They watched in horror as it started getting redder and redder, becoming quite copper just as mom was coming home, and they caught it for that one. When she was a little older and expressed desire to be a real hair professional, Judy's mom made it clear she could NOT come near her head until she had plenty of training!

Nichole told me that when she was in beauty school, an older lady came in who admitted she'd had plenty of product put into her hair lately, but wanted now to have new color put in. They tried to explain to her that there was NO guarantee of how it would turn out since they didn't know what had been done previously. But she was okay with that, so they continued. They even tested a little strand first and there was no strange reaction, no smoke coming off of it like COULD happen with some bizarre chemical reaction.

It turned out GREEN.

Dark avocado green. Nichole saw her the next day and could totally pick her out from the crowd across the street when she came down to lunch - that's how well she now stood out. She was a classy lady, always wearing suits and working in the capitol building in SLC... but she loved to be adventurous with her hair, so she was just fine with the green!

I was sad when I was 11 and still thought I was blonde, only to realize I really wasn't any longer. My hair just kept getting darker; my grandmother even accused me of coloring it.
THAT didn't start until I was in my 40's. And of course, I'm working at keeping it dark nowadays. I pay for product and services so that I can keep the gray at bay. I'm just vain enough to put up with the dorky foil strips every 5 weeks or so. Maybe when I'm older and really facing being a towhead again, I'll try out avocado green!
Think I could pull it off?

Letter to an Atheist

This post is an answer an atheist's commentary in the paper, printed Nov 2007; I wrote the following letter to the editor and it was published. (I found this copy in my journal)
The fellow (an engineer and author,) was commenting on a piece by a religious lady, and made his atheism clear. At the end he tells us he is a member of Humanism, and invites her to join him. He also says somewhat mockingly, "Tell us, in your most humble opinion, what does a god do with his time? Create hurricanes? Manufacture drug-resistant viruses? Bless serial killers? Where does evil come from in a world totally controlled by a loving god?"
It was his insinuation that religion is just ancient superstitions exposed as manmade fabrications that bugged me the most, and I hope he read it. (He was a guest writer, not an editor.) There were be comments on MY comments, other people piped in as well.

I can respect Charles Lesher's lack of belief in God, especially if he hasn't had any spiritual experiences to help him understand there is a living God/Creator. If he doesn't want God in his life, then God will indeed stay out.
But for those of us who invite God in on a daily basis, we DO have spiritual experiences. I know that for myself, I've prayed mightily to have my asthmatic daughter be able to breathe (late at night in a foreign place where I had no access to medical help,) and her breathing became completely better within minutes. I have prayed for help solving a problem and had pure, NEW, information put into my mind in answer, something that I hadn't thought up on my own.
When this happens time and again throughout one's life, it is impossible to NOT believe in God. So while Mr. Lesher states: " ... in world where science has increasingly exposed the ancient superstitions as manmade fabrications.," I take exception to the idea of lumping all 'ancient superstitions' with my current belief system. My faith is in a God who lives now, and answers my prayers often immediately, and helps me cope with a sometimes lousy world... there is nothing ancient about it.
Mr. Lesher hints at an assertion I hear from many atheists, that a loving God wouldn't allow people to suffer. It assumes one knows completely why God created us and put us on this world. Personally, I think he created us first in a perfect place, but wanted us to have experiences away from perfection, so we grow up on an imperfect, disease-ridden world, where even the weather can get out of control and cause death. We have to deal with microbes that maim and kill, parasites that sicken us, wild beasts that eat us, and other humans that hurt and destroy for the sheer pleasure of it.
I can't say I agree completely with Linda Turley-Hansen's statements as I think some sound a little odd. I think I prefer Einstein's explanation: "The deeper one penetrates into nature's secrets, the greater becomes one's respect for God." And, "We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

To believe in a greater power that created the heavens, us and this earth is to me more logical than the idea that life here evolved without some direction. Life seems to decay when left alone, not evolve into a higher life form. I've yet to hear a good explanation of how something as complicated as the eyeball, or our heart, or mammary glands could evolve without management by a higher power. I really can't fathom a fish saying one day, "I am so tired of bumping around in the dark, I hope my offspring have a way to focus and see clearly." Not all God-fearing people feel that a God/Creator and evolution are mutually exclusive.
Some religions have indeed gone overboard in imposing morals and laws to the detriment of society. And some teach some pretty wacky things. But it doesn't mean ALL religions and faiths are wrong or that God does not exist. I take exception when Mr. Lesher suggests I need to "accept reality as it is instead of how our primitive ancestors thought it should be." My faith isn't based on primitive belief systems as much as it is based on my reality here and now, my spiritual experiences I have been having for 40 years, since I 'found God' as a teen.
- Robin Reeder 16 Nov 2007

Pa'i - qui' 排球

I commented back in October on how Chinese restaurants are handing out

Advice Cookies

nowadays instead of telling us our fortune.

The cookie I received last week follows suit and with not such remarkable advice:

"Forget those things that aren't worth remembering."

Okay, I guess that is great advice for people harboring anger or resentment.

However, it was the back of the 'fortune' that caught my eye. Above my lucky numbers was this:

LEARN CHINESE - Volleyball

pa'i -qui' 排球.

I am guessing one would say this Pie-key.

That will REALLY come in handy when I am next in Hong Kong! Hopefully the other cookies have more helpful words, like taxi or subway or hotel. Maybe if you buy enough Chinese food, you could string together a sentence with the words you get to learn... something useful like, "Please, where might I find a restroom?"

Instead with my luck, I'd learn to say, "Your mother is an ugly volleyball."

Storing Veggies

When Dani was here for Christmas, we bought this spinach at Costco -I balked because that was a LOT of spinach and I really didn't think we'd eat it all and make it worth the cost. I was SO wrong.

Well, not about not eating it. The holidays were so busy and we were always out and were not eating regular meals, especially not big salads. I certainly wasn't eating any, and she didn't make all the smoothies she thought she would, yada yada....

So I've ignored this bin of spinach in my fridge, dreading getting it out and cleaning out the slimy leaves. It's been in there 3 weeks and I'm imagining the very worst - like the time my mother MAILED me some flowers she'd picked from her patio planter. She was SO PLEASED at how pretty they were, so as a surprise to me, she put several into a baggie, popped them into a manila envelope and sent them off. I open the envelope and find this baggie of brown GOO - it seriously looked like something your doctor might ask you to bring in to the lab. UGH!! (and no note of explanation, so I truly wondered at its contents!!)

But NO! I got brave and opened the plastic container to find great looking spinach! As in, many edible leaves! Yes, there were some slimy ones and the rest of it is actually heading out to the mulch pile this morning. But this is after we made a decent sized salad last night.

Since my previous experience with pre-packed spinach and salads from the grocery store has been rifling through the bags looking for the one with the latest expiration date, in hopes they MIGHT last more than a few days in my fridge, and then they go bad anyway if we don't eat them in like two days; well, this organic spinach - NOT laden with some suspicious preservatives - was a wonderful surprise.

Then I thought the bin would be a great holder for the little toys the kiddos have strewn around upstairs, but Nichole pointed out that it is this magic plastic bin that makes the spinach last so well. She's asked the grocer, it is made of the plastic they use in Green bags, and inhibits the ethylene that makes food decay. (she said Sprouts has smaller versions of these containers, too. The veggies might seem expensive initially, but then you've got this great container for the fridge.) And lest you get really impressed that I knew HOW they worked, I'll confess I wrote oxygen first - but then I went here
Green Bags
to read all about Ethylene (the gas, NOT your great-grandfather's first girlfriend.)

And here is another site which Dani found - How to store fruits and vegetables

Well, now I'm going to use the bin in my drawer with other veggies; we'll see how well the celery or peppers will last in there.

And if it doesn't seem all that much of an improvement, it will instead go upstairs and store legos..... to make THEM last even longer than their million year lifespan.

Love the Clouds!

My sister-in-law keeps posting the most beautiful sky photos from their house up in Nevada - Corey and Debi live near Lake Tahoe in one of our favorite valleys in the country! I'm always so jealous, since the common sky here is blue; Day after day, clear clear clear. Colorful sunsets are rare.

So when I headed out for my walk this morning and realized we had some real color up in our sky, I was SO glad I'd grabbed the phone/camera as I stepped out the door. I hurried around the corner to get a better view, aware that each step - each second - the rich purples, pinks and oranges were fading from the sunrise.

I met Nichole up on a corner and the first words out of her mouth were about the colorful sky, so I suggested we head further over to an open spot over the golf course that would afford a house-less view and a true vista.

I grabbed my phone to quickly snap a photo, but then realized I really don't have MY phone... my phone has cracks in the hinges and I've been using a similar phone we inherited from Jim's sister Linda last July. I am using it until I figure out if I want to get a new phone, but its differences vex me. And the camera, how do I operate the camera?! I'm hurrying, knowing that literally every second means the gorgeous colors are fading, and we can see that already.






Nichole is getting out her phone as well, and I'm fiddling with mine. I think I've finally done it and take a few pictures - here's the prettiest one. Not bad for unretouched out of a camera.







But we were interrupted by nearly falling down laughing when I took a look at my first shot. I'd been hurrying to snap the photo, trying to figure out even if there was a button to push, I thought I'd previously seen one over on the side of the phone. I find it and finally take aim at the changing sky and shoot.





And when I quickly brought up my first photo to see if it were even decent - well you can see why I nearly fell over laughing.

There's a reason this isn't a Photo Blog.