The Studious Type.

Calla brought me a book, pleading "read book?"

The book - The New Testament -- Its Background, Growth, and Content.

If you insist...

Niftier than I anticipated

While visiting my folks, Calla was using my dad's handheld solitaire game as a phone - walking around their house with it open like a flip-style cell phone. So, because she liked it so much, and against my protests (i.e. slipped in a bag when we weren't looking), he sent it home with us for her. She has plenty of toy phones here, I might add - a few of which are old cell phones with the battery pulled out.

So while she does still sometimes use the solitaire game in this fashion, she typically is using one of the other phones. Or her cup. Or whatever else she grabs. (Plan for calling us on our cell vs. on the home line when Calla gets older - I foresee her being on the phone quite a bit)

Since she doesn't use the game that much now, I've taken to playing it. Now, I wasn't sure how much anyone here would use it, beyond Calla's phone rotation - but I *love* it. It's addictive! My thought had been, "But I usually have the computer up. I can play spider solitaire on it". This handheld game, though, is backlit - so playing after the earlier-to-bed members of the household go to bed can be done without the light-up-the-room (and attract-every-gnat-in-the-house) effect of the monitor.

I would have bought one for myself long ago had I realized I would like it so much!

And now, to shut down the comp and play solitaire. Night! :)

Regarding the earlier prayer request

Linda's husband passed away on Saturday morning.

Please do keep the family in prayers as they mourn their loss.

A little greener.

In several ways. First, in our bank account. Yay stimulus payment! It may or may not do what the government wants, but it still came at a much-needed time for us.

Secondly though, I finally bought some canvas shopping bags when I was at the grocery store. Now, I'm not a huge pro-"green" type. Not because I think saving resources isn't important, but I'm just kinda turned off by the trendiness of it. At least it's trendiness with some positive outcomes, perhaps, but still. Certain things I can and will do, and certain things I can't/won't. A more fuel-efficient car would be wonderful, but this one is *paid for*, and no matter how many people say that a more efficient vehicle would pay for itself - it may well, no doubt - I'd still have a car payment that I don't currently have (ditto things like new windows in the house).

Aaaanyhow.

The shopping bags, I like. They hold a LOT, and seem very sturdy. Win-win, if you ask me. And bonus - the woman ahead of me in line today at the grocery store saw my bags on the belt and decided to get some too. She said I guilted her into it, LOL. They are nifty bags, though, and would make good beach bags and things like that in addition to grocery shopping bags.

Hope the Brookshire's folks won't go weird on me if I go there with my HEB bags. :D

Say a prayer if you would?

If you would, please, say a prayer for the family of our school's former office manager (she worked there for a few years, but had to leave for financial considerations). Her husband was diagnosed about 5 months ago with late stage colon cancer - if I remember correctly, stage 5.

His liver has shut down, so they're talking hours now. They do have a lot of friends supporting them, and she and her husband have come to peace with this. They have three sons who are having a harder time, understandably (10, 12, and 14).

Please keep Linda, her husband Gerald (Gerry) and their family in your prayers as they prepare for his passing.

Thank you.

Nifty house (small, though!)

Nifty woodland house

Funny - about children's videos

From the same comedian who rants about Pachelbel's Canon in D.

On Children's Videos

A couple of nifty things

Firstly, in reading Museum of Hoaxes, I found an entry that led to a "real art vs. fake art" quiz at the site below.

http://reverent.org/quizzes.html

It features a number of other quizzes pitting recognized great works against not-so-recognized works, mostly, it seems in reading his analysis of the results, to question what makes great art/writing/music great - the substance, or the name attached to it?

I stunk at the art furniture/cheap furniture quiz. Got about 60% on the modern art/fake art one. Got 83% on the known/unknown artist quiz.

Former GM Vaschon and I still chat with some regularity in IMs. We do a lot of sending links to youtube videos to each other - usually get on some random kick of old Muppet Show videos or the such like (or perhaps playing games like looking for videos of songs with colors in the title. Yes, we are that geeky. Come on, we GMed/GM for a text-based game!). One such exchange led through something billed as the worst music video ever (I tend to agree), then to a Daler Mehndi video (Tunak Tunak Tun), and then to something else that we both favorited. Take a look/listen - I got partway through it and realized that I really, really liked it -- Mehboob Mere, by Sunidhi Chauhan.

Mehboob Mere