Friday, August 20, 2010

Smoking Takes Another Life

Everything happens for a reason. My mother's funeral was on Aug. 19, six years ago. She was a heavy smoker.

And my daughter's father in law just lost his battle with lung cancer, also on Aug. 19 just a few hours ago. The Dr. thought he had another six months. He smoked for 30 years. May he rest in peace.

When a noble man passes on
All you can do is be glad his pain is gone

He will not live to see the birth of his grandson in Sept.

I hope my mother is there to greet him as he passes over the veil. I'm not sure they ever met in real life but she would have liked him.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Bloggers New Templates and Google Adsense

I was really frustrated last week when I tried to tweak my Google AdSense widgets on some of my blogs. I got error messages on the blogs I was editing as well as on a new blog I created. I tried to resolve the issue by searching for answers on Google and on the help pages of Blogger and AdSense to no avail. So I crossed my fingers and hoped it was one of those issues that would fix itself if I just stopped mucking around with it.

Happily today I was greeted on Blogger by a pop-up window announcing new template software. It's been so hard to create decent original templates on Blogger. And I'm guessing that implementing that new feature was the thing that was mucking up Adsense on my blogs because today it's all working just fine. All the blogs I edited have the Adsense ads showing up again, and even the new blog is showing the ad boxes.

I've played around some with the new template features. So far it's been confusing. I did test out a few of the designs but still don't know if it will let me add my own photos to the backgrounds like Twitter and other sites do. So I still have a lot to check out. Please don't try it on your favorite blog that you've soaked hours into. Make a new blog or use one of your experimental blogs to test drive the new features.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Ducks in the City

I was driving north on Beach Blvd. by Knott's Berry Farm when we spotted a mother duck and 7 or 8 ducklings crossing in the crosswalk. They finally crossed all 6 lanes and an island in the center and people in cars everywhere were yelling out and beeping so no one would hit the ducks. Just when we thought they were going to make it, the mother duck jumped the curb to safety but the ducklings were too short. They kept jumping and jumping but they couldn't make it to the sidewalk. Then the light changed and we had to drive on, but 2 cars had stopped to help them. Darn, I hate not knowing how that turned out.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Card Memory System

By taking a deck of cards, and telling a story about each card in order, it is possible to memorize a random deck of cards in just a few minutes.  Here is a sample of the first story I made up on the spot.

Ten men with spades came marching down the road. On the path they passed a rich woman. She had with her two of her sons, both named Jack. The first Jack was a loving man and the 2nd carried a sword.  While they were walking, a Queen came down the path with her son. She hailed the men with spades and gave 7 of them gems. There were 3 men with spades left so she gave them each four diamonds. If the men were to bet them at the gaming tables, they'd each win 8 diamonds.

After they went on their way a sadder group of people came down the path. It was a rich lady with a big heart. But she was being held prisoner by the King of Swords and the King of Clubs. On each of the king's shoulders was a raven. They were closely followed by 2 cardinals. Then there was a woman executioner in black. She carried 2 daggers. The rich woman was being accused of stealing a crown with 10 diamonds.


This story system can be used with a whole deck of cards. In this story the order of the cards was
10 of spades, Ace of diamonds, Jack of hearts and Jack of spades. Then the Queen of hearts, Jack of hearts, 7 of spades and 3 of spades. Followed by 4 of diamonds and 8 of diamonds.

Then the story changes. Ace of hearts. King of Spades, King of clubs. 2 of spades, 2 of diamonds. A of spades, 2 of spades, and finally 10 of diamonds.

I think if I make my story more fanciful next time it will be easier to remember. I'm primarily using tarot equivalents, where as the red cards are feminine and the black cards masculine. Also, spades are edged weapons like swords and knives.  Clubs (wands, also fire in most tarot decks) come into play in my stories. Diamonds are rich women, hearts are loving women. In one case I used black as ravens or crows. Red birds can be cardinals, or robins. But use whatever imagery suits you.

Here are some examples:

Ace of hearts:  A loving woman alone (Ace=one)
Two of hearts: A pair of lovebirds. (Hearts=love)
Three of hearts: A threesome of female lovers
Four of hearts: A red building or a  wedding chapel (Fours are buildings, a symbol of four walls equals stabilty. A wedding chapel because wedding=love=hearts=red
Five of hearts:  Hearts are also cups and emotions in a tarot deck so you could see this as 5 red cups/glasses/goblets.
So if in the story there was a woman in black drinking five glasses of red wine, I'd know that was the 5 of hearts.
Six of hearts: A red hexagon (hexagons have 6 sides). On the hexagon is a heart.
Seven of hearts: Since seven is the number of spirituality I might see that as an angel in a red gown.

Hopefully you get the idea. You don't have to use tarot meanings. Whatever is relevant to you will work. Like if you are an artist, then hearts can be artists, diamonds can be patrons of the arts, spades can be debtors, clubs can be agents.  As long as the story line makes sense to you that's what matters.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Wild Train

I found one of the keys to managing my anxiety is to live in the present. The minute I start worrying about the future my mind is like a runaway train. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment. When I get there at 10 AM then I will deal with it. Today and right now I have other things to do. Like update my blogs. And take photos of the watercolors I did last night while I still have good light outdoors.

This morning we got my truck running again. Is it possible that all it needed was a new battery? I sure hope so because even that cost me almost $100. (Battery, terminals, etc.). We also replaced the fuel filter. But at least the truck is out of the driveway. So it was the action (not the worrying) about the truck that got rid of that particular anxiety. I think that is part of the curse of poverty. Instead of fixing things in a timely manner, it's too easy to just sit and worry about them as you wait another month for another payment of some sort to arrive. I truly believe that action dispels fear. Doing something is almost always better than sitting in a funk and worrying.