Thanks guys!

Thanks for the "welcome backs"! And I thought nobody cared! Magz-love your blog. My goal is to someday get pictures into the blog like you and beFrank. Although my desert isn't as pretty as yours. Just lots of sagebrush and tumbleweed. Been here for 26 years and now I'm on the "4 year plan". (Goal: escape to Bellingham when son graduates high school). (Now, if son will just cooperate a little bit!) Kerry and Zandra: see you soon!

Where does the time go????

Creative writing hasn't been on my mind lately, as you could probably tell! What little bit of creativeness that I do possess has been spent on big time (or in Jack's thinking, big money) redecorating of our master bedroom and den. Got rid of all the very, very old (OK, would you believe late 70s, early 80s?) carpeting and put in new (beige with a fleck of colors) carpeting. Very cushy and pleasing to the toes. Rob ripped out an old naugahyde (remember that stuff??) built-in couch in the den that looked like it belonged in my boss's waiting room (He's a dentist.) Now we have a combo TV room/library/desk for bill paying room. Lots of storage space in the closest, as we cleaned that out too. (Lost count of how may boxes of books we pulled out of there!) In the master bedroom, we re-arranged furniture a bit and are still waiting for the new bedding, pictures and drapery rods to arrive. Oh, and we painted both rooms and the hallway too. So, it's been a lot of fun, but now I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend in Bellingham with Kerry!

Your government is here to help you!

Here is another fine example of rules that the government gets involved in making to protect ourselves from ourselves. Went to Goodwill this morning to drop off some things, including curtain rods that we had used for draw drapes in the bed room. No can do. Goodwill no longer accepts them because the government says they are not up to safety standards. I.E., a child could hang him/her self with the cords. Never mind that these rods did not have cords hanging (the cords were fixed at both the bottom and the top to run parallel to each other). Yes, perhaps there is some way a child could conceiveably get injured with these rods, but couldn't that occur with most anything a child comes in contact with? When was it declared that Americans no longer had any common sense at all??? Did I miss that?

O Ringo, say it isn't so!

One of the dubious delights (?) of not sleeping well is being able to tune into late night television. Who should pop up there but Ringo Starr, doing (of all things) a Time-Life Music infomercial selling a musical collection of The First 10 Years of Rock N Roll. What in the world would possess this musical icon of the late 20th century to do this? Please tell me that he doesn't need the money! I kept expecting Colin and Ryan of "Whose Line is it Anyway" to be the announcers....

Thought for the Day, courtesy of Alice Cooper

"If you are listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you are a bigger moron then they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons."