Marie Osmond

I LOVE these pictures of Marie! Did you see her "dance" on Monday night? It was HORRIBLE! It wasn't even a dance. I think she just gave up at the end. The whole thing was just stupid. And I could not stand her quote, "I'm a dollmaker!" UGH! Pathetic. She deserved that score. Go Bruno!

Square Envelopes

Did you know that the Post Office charges you more to mail a square envelope than it does to mail a rectangle one? Here is a portion of an article about it.

The square has four equal sides and four right angles. It is a regular shape. To the U.S. Postal Service, however, the square is "unusual." Its sorting machines, built for oblongs, can't find the address on a square envelope. People have to do it. That's why the post office imposes the square surcharge.
The square surcharge has been around since machine sorting began in 1979, yet even those who knew about it rarely knew how many stamps to put on a square letter. Postal clerks often didn't know, either, so square letters mostly got delivered anyway.
Then last May, the post office launched a new "shape-based" initiative. Mailing a one-ounce oblong costs 41 cents. A one-ounce square costs 58 cents, including a 17-cent surcharge for squareness. At a Manhattan post office not long ago, a window clerk named Thomas Merritt took one look at a square envelope and said, "Nonmachinable. I would not use that shape, period."

Guess in that case it's not hip to be square.
It is so weird letting your 17 yr old daughter go into a bank and make a deposit by herself. My fledgling is about to leave the nest, I suppose. In the past month she has also gone to the movies without a parent and to a restaurant without a parent. It makes me feel SO OLD!

I went to my new counselor, and I like her A LOT! The problem is: she gives homework and LOTS of it! This week I have to listen to another sermon by C.S. Spurgeon, who is good but I think very dry; read the entire book of Ephesians; read a small book (which I accidentally left on her desk -- awwwww); read a pamphlet, write down answers on a page about prayer, take notes on the sermon at my church this Sunday. OUCH!

I was thrilled to see the Target R2D2 coming onto the screen and saying, "Merry Christmas!" Good for Target FINALLY!

Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind; Teach us to be patient and always to be kind.Helen Steiner Rice

~'night all~

Cold, Rainy Saturday

It is a cold and rainy Saturday. I don't expect many customers -may close at noon.

Had breakfast at Denny's this a.m. with Kim and Shannon. Shannon is an online buddy I have never met IRL. She was very sweet, and they both came to the store to do some shopping! I do have one older couple right now shopping for preschool items.

KSBJ is playing Christmas music this morning, and it is upsetting me. I may need to switch the station. If it is only November and I am feeling like this, I don't even want to know what December will be like.

K17 went and saw Enchanted last night. She is going to take K14 and a friend to see it today.

I read a 350 page book in less than 24 hours. It was nice to do that. I hardly ever read anymore. I had forgotten how much I missed getting into a good story.

I am going to try to go back to church tomorrow. Hopefully, I will. Tomorrow, the Texans play so I will be watching and writing lesson plans for the week. Maybe do some grocery shopping, too. I wish the holidays would last another week.

Dusti went with us to Mom and Dad's. She did very well except for during the meal. She sat on the floor next to my mom and whined the entire time, wanting food, of course. She doesn't do that at our house because she knows we won't give her any. But my mom is a sucker for a cute face and has passed her food in the past from the table. This year Mom made Dusti wait until after the meal and put the scraps in her food bowl.

The pig and the chicken were on their way to breakfast, trying to decide what to have. When chicken said, ''Let's have ham and eggs.'' The pig then replied, ''That's fine for you, it's a small donation on your part, but it's a total sacrifice for me.''”

A SMILE FROM GOD!

Happy Thanksgiving

K14 was telling me the other day, "Mom, we need to get a chimney sweep out here so we can start a fire in the fireplace." It barely gets below 40 degrees here, so fires are few and far between.

Growing up, we had a fireplace. Every year for Christmas I would buy my dad the exact same thing - a box of fireplace matches and a package of color crystals that you throw into the fire, causing the flame to turn beautiful colors. I remember us trying to pop popcorn in the fireplace popcorn popper. It was tiring to hold that thing and shake it over the fire. Once Dad had some wood sitting on the hearth, and it was full of carpenter ants. I remember that when he threw the logs into the fire, that the ants made a hissing sound. I remember feeling sorry for the ants because they were experiencing a painful death.

On Christmas Eve, dad would open the fireplace curtain and move the grate sideways so that it looked disturbed. Then he would take his shoes and put them in the ashes and walk them across the floor, making it appear that Santa had been there.

I LOVE fires in the fireplace, but I am afraid of leaving the embers unattended when we go to bed.

~Happy Thanksgiving!~

A crooked log makes a straight fire.

Holiday Parade

Today was our annual holiday parade. The theme was Happy 100 years to our town. K17 and K14 clogged on float #112. They looked really sharp out there!

Last night they went to a social, giving R and I some time alone. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Tonight they have a Thanksgiving feast at one of the churches, giving R and I time alone. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. They will be at my mom and dad's from Tuesday to Thanksgiving, giving -- you got it -- R and I time alone!

Tomorrow the Texans are playing, so that is couch time for me! The girls don't have any writing homework to do this weekend, but I think they have science work to do, I'm not sure.

I took K17 out of Vocabulary from the Classical Roots - it just wasn't doing the job -- and switched to a visual clue version of Wordsmart. It is the second book in a series, but got it in my resale section so I couldn't be picky.

The girls are at home making cornbread for tonight's feast. I have R working at the cash register deleting files, and I have played on my laptop all day. We got an order from Alabama yesterday. We have had a steady stream of customers today -- I didn't open until noon because of the parade -- mostly Girl Scout purchases.Dang! A man just picked up an expensive item that we NEVER sell and then decided to put it back!

Well, it's about time to close. Y'all have a nice weekend!

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good..." Psalm 100:4, 5a

Strike Outs Below

Just a note about the post below. I was trying to be clever and strike out the word "doorstops" and it struck out the entire post. I went back to try to fix it and managed to save all but the top paragraph.

Overheard in the store today...

You'll be glad to know that Mr. Klein is already selling doorstops fruitcakes in his store. BLECH! R and I bought an apple pie and a cherry pie last night for Bible study. YUM! Problem is that hardly anyone showed up, so we had to bring half a pie of each home.

The following was overheard in the store yesterday:
Customer to employee: How do you know how much this costs?
Employee: There is a price tag.
Customer(turning the book over): Oh, okay.

A big Homer Simpson "DOH"!

Some of you know that on Wednesday, I clean toilets, 18 to be exact (including urinals). I do this as part of a homeschool co-op. It's not an exciting job, but it keeps me away from people and all the chitchat. Anyway, you can learn a lot while cleaning toilets. For instance, did you know that the toilets in the girls' restroom are yuckier than those in the boys' restroom? Also, what is the point of tearing up paper towels into miniscule pieces and throwing them on the floor RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRASHCAN? I know why. So that I will be challenged picking them up wearing living gloves. Did you know that someone makes floormats especially to put in front of urinals? Today I learned that the automatic flushing toilets actually have a red button to push to manually flush them. Guess what I have been doing for the past six weeks? Waving my arms madly like a maniac, doing everything but the Hokey Pokey to get them to flush. What an idiot.

Just between you and me, I think that Marie Osmond is going to win Dancing with the Stars simply out of popularity. She should not have made it this far. I would be curious to see the actual results of the votes to see if she is usually close to number one. If she wins I think the show is done for. I mean, why watch when you know it's just a popularity contest?

"I've learned.... That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes."
-- Andy Rooney

OCD Joke

I stole this joke from another blog.

A Stanford Medical research group advertised for participants in astudy of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
They were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with thisdisorder.
The response was gratifying; they got 3,879 responses one hour afterthe ad came out.
All from the same person.

Tee hee.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

My dad had a birthday yesterday! We are going to baby brother's house tonight to celebrate! It will be so nice to have the whole family together.

K17 got a job at Chick-Fil-A (good for her!), so that will be another place I will be driving to during the week.

I am very happy to report that my friend, Kim, had an excellent report from her oncologist this week! And she looks GREAT!

I know my last post sounded kind of depressing. This werek I feel like a new woman. I have started going to a Christian counselor (trial period) and she answered a lot of my questions. I am working on taking better care of my body, my mind, and spending more time with the family. I am even going to go to church tomorrow for the first time since December. I know that I will have setbacks (and I pray that my family will forgive me for that), but I am really going to try to make a go of it from now on. So now I am going to two counselors, but that should not be a problem because they are working on different issues. My OCD therapist will be moving away in February so I won't get to see her anymore anyway. And best of all -- this new counselor is free!

It is boring at the store today. R is on his way to bring me some lunch after he drops off K17 at a friends house. She's going to go see Dan In Real Life. K14 is hanging out at home with her BFF.

Only one order this month so far on the internet. Several people were shopping yesterday but didn't check out. Someone is shopping right now from PA - she has a whopping $3.90 in her shopping cart! The webmaster has assured us that even though this is considered to be our slow season, Google is continuing to increase the amount of people it sends here.

Went out for margaritas with E last night. Was so nice to get out, eat chips and pico de gallo, drink and talk for 2 1/2 hours.

Well, take care all. I don't have the creativity today to leave you with a quote.