J-Land Anniversary

J-Land is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this month.  Donna has done some beautiful graphics and we can take our pick from them. What a very talented lady and how kind of her to take the time and trouble to do these for us.  Here is my choice for today

So head on over to Donna and choose what graphics you wish. Donna has said more will be coming.  Here is her link:-

DONNA

Also Vivian is trying to organise a J-Land celebration and she is looking for ideas from journallers to mark the three year anniversary.  So wrack your brains and pay her a visit. Why not pay her a visit anyway then you can read all about it.  Please spread the word by giving it publicity on your own journal.  Here is Vivian's link.

VIVIAN

Glad you liked the pictures of the boys yesterday.  Still waiting to hear how Daniel got on at the hospital this morning.

I'm Singing In The Rain

Well, maybe not singing exactly but we have had some rain, not much, nowhere near the amount we need, but we have had some.  Trouble is another heatwave is forecast for the weekend so I am hoping for a really good downpour before then.

Well, I have just seen my hit counter pass the 100,000 mark.  Amazing.  To think in the early days I never thought it would get to a couple of hundred.

Life remains very quiet here although him indoors does intend to start building us a new side gate in the next couple of days.  We have never liked the one we have, it never gave us total security and it is now old and battered and long overdue for a change (much like me!)  That will keep him out of mischief!

My sales on Amazon picked up and I have now sold around forty items with about another forty to go.  The things you think will be snapped up are not and things you think will never sell do which just goes to show there is no accounting for people.

More good news about Daniel.  His blood tests have all come back clear.  That is such a relief to us all but on the other hand, we are no nearer finding the cause of his problems.  Becky was lucky to get a cancellation appointment with the specialist at the hospital tomorrow and it will have to be taken from there.

The boys were over yesterday so I did manage to get a couple of quick snaps:-

I love this next one of Daniel in Grandy's arms

Nathan is looking more grown-up by the day

I have been reading a very good book called "The Eastend Chronicles" which has brought home to me yet again, how tough it must have been for my great-grandfather and his family living in that area and for my grandfather as well.  The area they lived in was, at one time,  known for its opium dens and believe it or not, Charles Dickens visited to gather material for his last and unfinished book.

There is one more boy who wanted to get in on the act and I must not leave him out.  He has only blotted his copybook once lately by chewing the edge of a rug but hopefully, now he has nearly all his adult teeth, that will soon be a thing of the past.  So.....................................here's Jack!

It only seems like five minutes since he was a tiny pup.  How quickly animals and children grow.

Well, I am off to have a nice cuppa now. Glad to have Sandra back with us.

Jokes

Oh how I wish the above picture was of here!  We have still not had one drop of rain although they keep on forecasting it. 

It has all been very quiet here so there is nothing really to write about.  No photos of the garden because it is all so parched and looking forlorn.

So I thought I would post a couple of jokes I have "borrowed" from a site I belong to.

*Please note that these jokes are in no way intended to offend anyone.  Particularly the last joke. I do not want to upset our American friends in any way.  The jokes are only intended to raise a smile in a sad world.

The new priest is nervous about hearing confessions so he asks the older priest to sit in on his sessions. The new priest hears a couple  of confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.

The old priest suggests, "Cross your arms over your chest and rub your chin with one hand......and try saying things like 'I see', 'yes', 'go on', and 'I understand'."

The new priest crosses his arms, rubs his chin with one hand and repeats all the suggested remarks to the old priest.

The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying "No sh ?.... what happened next?"

 

***********************************************************

 

The new Supermarket near our house has an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh. Just before it goes on, you hear the sound of a thunderstorm and detect the  smell of fresh rain.

When you approach the milk cartons you hear cows mooing and smell the scent of fresh butter fat.

When you approach the egg boxes, you hear hens cackle and the air is filled with the pleasing aroma of eggs frying.

..... I'm afraid to go down the toilet paper aisle.

 

************************************************************

Three Texas surgeons were playing golf together and discussing surgeries they had performed.

One of them said, "I'm the best surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I re-attached them, and 8 months later he performed a  private concert for the Queen of England."

One of the others said. "That's nothing. A young man lost both arms and legs in an accident, I re-attached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in field events in the Olympics."

The third surgeon said, "You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horse head-on into a train travelling 80 miles an hour.  Almost total obliteration. All I had left to work with was the horse's arse and a cowboy hat.

Now he's president of the United States."

 

*****************************************************

 

Wishing you all a great week!

 

There's Always Something!

Well, here I am again.  Just getting over a bout of what must have been food poisoning. I have rarely felt so ill and the pains were crippling. Spent lots of time in the smallest room in the house but you do not want to know about that.  We had some corned beef and I did not like the taste of it at the time, in fact I only ate half of mine and gave the rest to Jesse and Jack.  It upset them as well!!!

On the mend now but my stomach still feels very tender and I still have no appetite and no energy.

Last night I switched on the computer to find I had problems.  It now takes fifteen minutes to fire up, I could not log onto aol. etc. etc.   I know that several of you have had computer problems so my first thought was that it had to be a virus.  We ran full virus checks - nothing.  We ran Spyware - nothing.  Dean came and had a look.  He knows quite a bit about computers, he cannot fathom the problem.

I was able to uninstall aol and re-install it so that at least I am back online but if I suddenly disappear then you will know why.  I fear my faithful and normally trusty pc will have to go away for repair.  Thankfully it is still under warranty but I dread the thought of being without it.  So, there is always something to stress you out.

On a more positive note, the weather although still humid has cooled off a great deal from yesterday and I am hopeful that we might get some rain.  Fingers crossed.

On an even more positive note, Daniel's first set of test results came back absolutely clear.  Bless him, he was as good as gold at the hospital.  The blood tests results are still awaited as his appointment with an eye specialist.  Fingers crossed on all those as well.

So, after the illness of the week, after the stress of the computer last night and again for most of today, I think I will go and have a little lie down.  I can only hope I feel much better within a couple of days and that the old computer holds out.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

P.S. I have no idea why the graphic has started to flash. It was perfectly o.k. when I put it on.

Second Posting Today - News from Sandra

I am back again with the second entry of the day.  A long time after I posted this morning, I received an email from our dear friend Sandra of Sandra's Scribbles.

She has suffered a computer crash and does not know when she will be back online.  She says she feels very cut off and I know she will be suffering with withdrawal symptoms!!  We do so rely on our computers don't we?

Anyway I said I would do a posting to let you all know because her last posting said she was not well and she wanted you to know that she is fine, it is her computer that is sick and she will be back online as soon as she can.

Confused? - You Will Be!

What a strange language English is.  Need some proof?  Here you go then....

Can you read these correctly the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse .

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A sewer fell down into a sewer pipe.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why don't  preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.  That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

They say that this week will be even hotter than last and temperatures may well top 100 degrees by Wednesday.  I think I shall do the reverse of most creatures and hibernate until the colder  weather comes.  Try to stay cool and please remember baby Daniel attending hospital for tests tomorrow.  Never nice, but much worse in this heat.

Have a good week, dear readers.

 

Two Years

Two years ago today I was looking at AOL mainscreen and the word "blog" caught my eye.  What drew me to it I do not know.  Before I knew it I had taken the plunge and created my own.

After three entries with absolutely no comments, I did a fourth entry saying that it was obvious that nobody was reading and so I had decided to finish it there and then but I left that entry for twenty-four hours -  just in case.  Of course, that is when I got some comments.  I thought I might be able, at a push, to keep the journal going for a couple of months.  Now, here we are two years later and I am still writing it.  Not so often these days.  I have written so much about my family history, myself, my childhood, holidays, memories etc. that it is hard to come up with anything different now.  I live such a quiet and restricted life that there is not really much to write about there.

However I shall keep popping up from time to time as I could not imagine my life without a journal these days.  So, I would like to wish my own journal-

                        

However, my thanks go to all of you, my dear readers.  Had you not gone on reading and commenting then I could not have gone on writing.  I am proud to be a part of this great community.  I am touched and honoured by the friendships that I have made and I do thank you from the bottom of my heart.  So, for all of you

I hope to be back with another entry soon when this weather cools down.  They say today might be the hottest day for a hundred years.  It is certainly far too hot for me but I could not let this particular day pass unmarked.

God bless you all