I really had lost track of the passing time; or I guess I was uncertain about it. Anyway, she arrived! And, doing what so many do when someone new shows up on the scene, I grabbed both my phone and my regular camera and rushed to get photos of her in her wonderful fresh newness.
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One year ago tomorrow, I wrote a Facebook post announcing my blog. It’s my one year anniversary! I said I would write new posts each week and put them up on Fridays. And I did. At the beginning, four posts were already up, for Jeremy to work with as he got the website ready. So, if you visited the website that very first Friday, it had more than one lonely post that you could read.
This is a screen shot of the database-all full!
I’ve made a database, to track the posts and what Bible verses I reference and which fruit of the Spirit I use. The program will only hold 54 entries, so it’s full and won’t let me add any more. I had to start a new one, for Year Two (plus the last two posts from the first year).
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Tradition!! Wonderful memory or millstone? Is it, “Oh, thank goodness Aunt Delilah brought her persimmon pie!” or, “Oh, no! Aunt Delilah’s getting out of her car and she’s got her PERSIMMON PIE!!!”
Caroline Kennedy says, of family traditions and memories, “Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.” In the movie, milkman Tevye says that, “without traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.” Other folks think traditions are silly and out-dated.<
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The reason I went to Fort Worth this time (last Sunday afternoon) was to attend the Fort Worth Symphony concert at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. They were playing some Carmen, some Liszt, and ended with a rousing 1812 Overture with firecrackers that were advertised as “jaw-dropping” and “hair-raising.” They were pretty fabulous; here’s a YouTube video from the 2012 event. This year’s really was better.
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We have a slide projector. And several cartridges of slides. But we cannot actually view the slides, because the slide projector doesn’t really work any more. And anyway, I’m a photograph girl myself. It’s just so much easier to get out an album or an envelope of photos than to wait until dark and set up the projector and take things off the wall to make a place to project the slides. And these days, you just swipe through the pictures on your phone, anyway.
But, I’m not with you, so I’ll put my vacation pictures here for you to see.
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Several years ago, my sister and I determined that, based on our behavior, the thing we most feared in all of life was getting stuck somewhere with nothing to read. In doctor’s offices, in carpool lines, while waiting for various appointments, we have stashed in our purses, the car pockets, inside jackets, coats and sweaters, a variety of books, magazines, and/or newspapers.
Modern audio options; well, the way things are improving and changing, they may be old and obsolete in a couple of years (or months)
I still feel that way; but things are so much easier now. I’ve got books on my phone’s Kindle app. No more lugging a whole book with me to doctors’ offices. (And no more relying on outdated or boring magazines there.) When I’m driving, whether in town or on the highway, I’m often listening. The library has Playaways, little audio book players that are smaller than my phone. I put in a AAA battery and ear buds, and I’m good for several hours. I can import audio disks to my computer, transfer them to the phone, and listen to a good book while I’m working in the yard or doing housework.
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I’m on the mailing list for a nursery in Fort Worth. I get e-mails several times a week, especially at this time of year, telling me about special offers. Wednesday morning, I opened their new message and it said, “Thursday Only—-Ladybugs, regularly $9.99, now $6.98!” Oh, yes!
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As little girls, JoAnne and I found, in our Easter baskets, metal, crank-style music box figures. Hers was Peter Cottontail, and it played “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” when cranked. Mine was a purple egg, decorated with birds and flowers. When cranked, it played “London Bridge Is Falling Down.” Really. It did. I don’t know why. I don’t imagine the song has a history of being associated with Easter. I don’t know that it’s associated with eggs or flowers or birds. But that’s what it played. I’ll come back to that.
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I’ve mentioned before that I’m more of a fan of football than baseball or basketball. I grew up not even knowing what March Madness was. (I looked that up in Wikipedia to see when the term originated and discovered only that it came into use in the 20th century, not really the precise information that I was hoping for.)
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The fascinating Oxymoron craze crops up every now and then. It must be at a low point right now, otherwise I’d be seeing more lists of them on Facebook, like “10 Oxymorons That You Can Use at Work,” or “The Six Funniest Oxymorons Ever.” That sort of thing. I don’t know what those “10 Work-Related” or “Six Funniest,” might be, but now that I’ve brought it up, surely somebody will start working on them.
Anyway, if you missed one of the oxymoron surges in the past few years, oxymorons are common phrases that use words that are the opposite of each other. Like “Civil War,” because wars are anything but civil. And “Jumbo Shrimp,” because “jumbo” means “really big,” and “shrimp,” as slang, means “small.” You get the idea.
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