2013 Is Not an Unlucky Number

Responses to past questions in no particular order from ya'll:

Never played Angry Birds, but I do know what it is.  (I got a smart phone for Christmas, unasked for, and I am sure I will not play Angry Birds on it.  I am hoping I can just figure out how to make calls!)  The Angry Birds game in the post below was a lego-like game without the great Lego engineering behind it.

I do not know what Google Reader is and glad that I have 117 followers there--so should I shoot for 150 now?  How can I not know  about this stuff?

Regarding the malware issue, I deleted the html link from my side bar to another blogger and deleted the html link in my post to the same blogger and that got rid of my malware issue.  I still cannot go there to read her posts and I love her blog very much, so this is very frustrating!  I will try again soon.

I also cannot leave a comment on Murmurrs and I love her blog to death as well!!  I log in as Google reader, I log in as anonymous, nothing works.  I seem to have resolved The Chubby Chatterbox issue.  WILL YOU ALL PLEASE JUST STAY PUT!

On the bright side, 2013 is going to be a great year for us all...I just KNOW THAT!

Reviewing

The holiday was very nice this year.  One of those perfect ones where no one is sick, no one is grumpy, and no one has an agenda.  I will treasure it.

We got soft fuzzy things to hug, for me it was a bathrobe.

We got stuff to put on our head.

With or without tags, we really look cool.

Anyone for a game of Quidditch?

The adults got a little angry over assembly of Angry Birds.

Sometimes it was a little overwhelming.

Sometimes little animals friends went to hide under the furniture.

But it ended with the best double birthday party!

Happy

Follow Me!

All I want for Christmas (among other things money cannot buy) is 100 followers.  I am close!

I guess my blog is now safe from the malware notice that I got this morning??? I will let others know on the other blog if I get no problems later today.

Posting...or Not

I have been having trouble posting comments on a few blogs.   Murmurrs and Butler and Bagman to name two.  This may have been going on for some time because I assumed my comments were going through and I did not go back to read what I had written.  The other day I had wanted to add something and found that none of my posts were being accepted, at least to these two and maybe others.  I know that coding is becoming more individualized by bloggers, but does anyone know about this bug, and if so, found a solution?  (I tried IE and deleted all the cookies and that worked.  Mozilla is still being temperamental.  I am so depressed that all my wit and wisdom was for not lost in the Interknot!)

Now I find that Loose Leaf Notes is being blocked for Malware or something or other,no matter which broswer I use!  Sorry Colleen but Google will not let me comment!  Two bloggers forward and one backward.  Maybe this is a Mayan thing after all?

Godlessness Be Damned

As we get closer to a God-filled holiday, I am surprised, although I certainly should not be, at how many God-less situations are being pointed out to me by God-filled experts. The most recent being a justification for tragedies in schools and universities because they are God-less bastions of compromising lifestyles and philosophies, and the next at the funerals of some of the school victims where church-goers were protesting their Godlessness.

As my readers know I am not a religious person. I am not an agnostic or an atheist either. I am someone on a journey always looking for God-fullness and answers in religious and non-religious events alike.  I do not see God in my likeness but as a magnificent power or energy inside all living things, yet I do not see myself as a pantheist. I would never have the hubris to point out places where God does not exist.   But I am bold enough to say that I think God is goodness and God is everywhere.  God is the quiet and tiny.   God is sometimes the bold and loud. God is ALWAYS EVERYWHERE and we abandon God, God does not abandon us.  I do not think God is an evangelist demanding loyalty and creating punishment for those who stray.  We create our own punishment.  God is the softest act you will ever know seducing you into loyalty.  He is like the poet's (Autry) son who in his autistic struggle in this world caught not one but dozens of butterflies and hummingbirds in his child-hands in slow wonderment, named them and then set them free in love.

I see IT/God in the face of a child whose life was shortened by violence. I see IT in the eye of the whale. I see IT in the dance of youth at a party. I see IT in the hands of a nurse removing blood streaked gloves. I see IT in the bent and gnarled body of an old woman crossing the street. I see IT in all the music that man has created and invented. I see this power for goodness in the poetry I read. I see it in all the colored lights we string and all the candles we light when man celebrates any God-filled holiday anywhere in the world.  For that brief moment we concentrate outside ourselves.   I also see God in the anger and discouragement of mankind.  IT is hidden inside behind the fire waiting to be seen. 

I see IT when we sigh and forgive ourselves for our mistakes each year and promise ourselves a better year.  There sits God deep inside our soul waiting for us to recognize IT and not give up hope.

Got Your Attention, Didn't It?

I have had a mild infection that I have been unable to shake for weeks and I finally demanded help from a local Physicians Assistant since my doctor (well THAT is a whole other story) will be fired by me this month.  I am now on a drug that has the following uses:

"is used to prevent anthrax (a serious infection that may be spread on purpose as part of a bioterror attack) and  is also sometimes used to prevent or treat travelers' diarrhea and plague (a serious infection that may be spread on purpose as part of a bioterror attack)."  Were these explanations on labels years ago?  Do the U.S. embassies have this in their stock?  It also has not one but two black box warnings from the FDA.  Whatever THAT means.  I kept thinking of black boxes in airplanes as I read this.

The tablets are accompanied by a rather dense brochure.  This drug also has the following dangers:  "sudden pain, snapping or popping sound, bruising, swelling, tenderness, stiffness, or loss of movement in any of your joints."  It is that "snapping or popping sound" warning that makes me more than nervous in taking this.  No popcorn or fires in the fireplace tonight.

The above is, of course, in addition to a whole slew of possible reactions you would never want to happen to your worst enemy ever.

There, now aren't you feeling much, much better about your current problems?

Waves on the Water

This is how one email begain when I opened my inbox today:

This was a hard day telling Michael about what happened before knowing names. He is handling it well by asking thoughtful questions and knows that there are kids in heaven with Orazio(grandfather), Ricardo (horse), Elmo (fish), and his hermit crab.

Michael is the grandson of a friend of mine who just earlier that week attended a birthday party of one of the children who was killed in the tragedy at the elementary school and who also attended CCD (Catholic school) classes at his church taught by the mother of the same child.  The wife of my friend who sent this email, who is also a friend of ours, is a nurse and was at the hospital working with a father, a NICU Physicians Assistant who has save so many babies lives, when he learned that his daughter had been shot at the school.  This is the little blonde girl whose face has appeared in so many news stories.  These tragic waves keep on expanding.

This is such a tough holiday season for us all.  I took an unplanned trip up to see my grandchildren on Sunday...just to hug them and see them.

Early Warming?

It is totally amazing to me that I had roses to pick a few days ago to add to some Christmas decorations that are on my dining table.  I also noticed this morning that some trees are beginning to have small buds swelling in anticipation.  This is so frightening to me as I do think we must have some cold weather ahead.  If we do not, how odd spring will seem in early March!  Which plants will survive this change, which birds and insects will be caught off guard and flying around somewhere they should not be?

Words...just Words

You can ask why?  No one will give you an answer that makes any sense.

You can ask how?  No untangled web will lead to the path of what the pattern meant.

You can ask what next?  Take one step and then breathe and then take the next step and then breathe.

The breathing hurts, I know.  It is harsh and sharp.

The first step feels as if there is no ground beneath your foot.

You may fall, but pick yourself up.

Reach for that nearby hand, it is firm and warm.

Take the next step.

You are part of the tapestry of this life.

Your presence helps keep it all from unraveling.

You are important.  Please stay strong.