Anyone else out there remember stuff like this from the 1970's & 80's?  I was cleaning out some old boxes of papers I'd collected over the years and ran across this.

God Is Like . . .

God is like Coke - He's the real thing.

God is like Pan Am - He makes the going great.

God is like General Electric - He lights your path.

God is like Hallmark Cards - He cares enough to send the very best.

God is like Tide - He gets the stains out that others leave behind.

God is like VO Hair Spray - He holds through all kinds of weather.

God is like Dial Soap - Aren't you glad you know Him?  Don't you wish everyone did?

God is like Sears - He has everything.

God is like Alka-Seltzer - Try Him, you'll like Him.

God is like Scotch tape - You can't see Him but you know He's there.

- Barnwell (S.C.) People-Sentinel

This past week my best friend's mother died. The funeral was today.  She had Alzheimer's and had been slowly disappearing both mentally and physically.  D showed such love and patience with her mother and had found very good care for her.  They were very close and this will be a difficult loss and yet at the same time it was an answer to my friend's prayer that something would take her mother before the Alzheimer's totally took every shred of who she had once been.  Although she had shrunk to a mere 60 pounds and maybe 4' 8" and had been robbed of most of her memories and abilities, she could still respond to questions and prompts and knew who her children were.  We had just taken her to lunch with us last Tuesday and upon returning to her room she told D that that would probably be the last time as it was just too tiring.  On Friday she slipped into a coma like state and died Saturday morning.  D gave me 40 pictures of her mother from throughout her life which I scanned and made into a slide show for the service today.  It not only gave them a visual reminder of her, but helped them to get past the awful or just plain weird things that this disease made her say and do, and help them remember what she had truly been like.

D and I have known each other since high school (over 40 years now) and although we were always good friends, it has been in the last ten years that we have truly become best friends.  With the children grown and gone we've had more time to get together and our husbands have become best friends as well which makes for a really nice foursome for dinner, or cards or a trip to the beach.  We've also come to value our friendship enough to make allowances or not let little things bother us like they might have when we were younger.

She sometimes feels like she's always the one asking my help (such as the slide show or transportation or .....) and that I'm never needing help in return, but I beg to differ.  She is the one who has been my emotional support these past few years.  She is the one that when the depression was so bad and I almost never left my house, she insisted I go shopping with her so I could help her find what she needed.  The one who can always make me laugh.  The one who invited me to go to TOPS with her when I complained about my weight gain after thyroid surgery.  The own who gently nudges me to go or do or enjoy.  The one I took a 4 week road trip with two summers ago and had a blast.  The one who loves me even with my imperfections.  In short - she is my friend.  I love you D.

Our son and daughter-in-law were blessed in July with a healthy baby girl. Their first child and our first grandchild. She's a petite little thing, weighing in at 5 lbs. 9 oz. and 18 1/2 inches long. She has a good set of lungs, is very alert, strong and hungry, hungry, hungry. When she wants to be fed or to have her diaper changed, she wants it now. I had mentioned to them that her daddy had been very demanding as a baby (that hasn't changed). Can we all say payback? She was very active in the womb so we shall see if that continues now that she's out here in the world at large. Hopefully she won't be too much of a handful since I'll be helping to care for her when my daughter-in-law goes back to work. I don't know how soon that will be though - she's really loving the mommy role and 3 months is going by fast. She's thinking of asking her boss if she can use some of her sick time for another couple of weeks off.

My daughter and son-in-law flew out to spend a week visiting with their new little niece and my husband is already wrapped around her little finger. We're all enjoying her very much.

Let freedom ring!  We are so blessed to live here.  There are a lot of wonderful places in the world, but none with the type of history and freedoms that this country has had.  I hope you have a fantastic and safe holiday celebrating our country's independence.

Times change and so must we.  The more things change the more they stay the same.  Which is true? Are they both true? Is it only our surroundings that change and we stay the same or do we by necessity change in order to adapt to our changing environment?  Is it only the way in which we interact with our surroundings that changes or does our inward, fundamental character change as well?

I believe that both statements are true.  We do have to change and adapt as things around us change. Sometimes those changes can be quick and necessary as in a matter of survival, or sometimes slower because we're resistant to the changes or need time to adjust and change our thinking.  We are born with a particular personality that has both positive and negative aspects to it.  Our environment (parents, siblings, teachers, friends and the world in general) interact with our personality based on their own personalities and bring out the positive or negative in ours.  They help to shape our thinking, our character and how we react to what goes on in our world.

Although our personalty is there for life, how we operate or react is not.  We can choose to accentuate the positive and have the negative take a back seat.  We can change or improve character traits.  We can change how we look at things and how we react to things.  Is it easy?  No, or we would see more people doing it.  Is it impossible?  No, because we do see people doing it.  Basic human nature will always be with us, good and evil will always be with us, but that is not a license to give up or to say change is impossible.

Well, I'm off to see if I can play up the more positive aspects of me and downplay the negative.  Maybe, just maybe, I can turn someday into today. 

As promised the Spaces Team continues to make changes and hopefully improvements.  I say hopefully because sometimes I like the change and sometimes I don't and many times I like part of the change, but not all of it. Luckily (in a way) no change is permanent and they do seem to continue to work out bugs and improve on something based on our comments. I really, really hope that they'll improve the sandbox. I like the ease of it now and the ability to have as many as we want, but I do not like the inability to eliminate the module background. Sure, you can get rid of the title and border, but the background is still there and wider on the right side then on the top, bottom and left.  Consequently my banner no longer goes from edge to edge of my space and even though I made it smaller to fit in the box, it's not centered (I have the centering code in there). sigh

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Changes to Lists on Spaces with the last release

You may have noticed that we recently made some improvements to our Lists feature. We think lists are a great way to express ideas on your space – especially for those times when you’re not in the mood to write a full-fledged blog entry.  Here is a quick breakdown of the new stuff (in list format of course)…

3 new ways to use Lists to enhance your space:

1. Music Lists on the Homepage -  For the first time ever you can display a full music list on your spaces homepage (previously you could only display a list of your music playlists, with no actual song details). To create a new music list select Customize > Lists > Music List Add. Newly created music lists will automatically appear on your homepage. To add an older music list to your homepage look under Customize>Lists and  click “add” next to the list name.

Note: if your older music lists are not appearing in the Customize box, try visiting one of your music lists pages. To do this, click on the title of any of your music lists to go to the full page, and then return to Customize and refresh the dialog box - this will allow for a data migration on our end that should populate your Customize box.

 

2. The Music lists index –  You can display a list of your music lists with this newly renamed module. The Music lists index will automatically be populated with any new music list you create. This module can be added and removed via the Customize box.

3.  The List Item Picker – we made enhancing your lists with album, movie, and book art even easier. We’ve created a way to search our web service partners at Amazon and MSN Entertainment to ensure that you can add the artwork you want to your list item.

To use the new search, add or edit any list item and click the Search button. We’ll then show you the top ten matching results. Simply click the artwork you want for your list item and click Save. To get more details on an item in the picker mouse over the item to view a pop up box with more information.  

Tip: if you can’t remember what album a song is on - type in the song and artist, then click on the album titles to go to Amazon to investigate. This feature and the ability to add cover art are only available in Amazon supported markets (US,UK, France, Germany, and Japan) and MSN Entertainment markets (US).

In addition to the new functionality listed above we made some small design changes to make the lists more look more consistent in the homepage view and updated the code to improve performance. Look for more new list related features in the months to come and as always, let us know your thoughts and what else you would like to see with lists on spaces.

Abdul, Eric, and Wendy (the Lists feature crew)

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft, Social Networking, Blogging

I sincerely hope that this really will make a difference.  It's such a small thing, putting a button on your space and maybe only gathering pennies toward your particular cause, but as the saying goes - every little bit helps.  I've chosen MS because I've known several people with it and it's such a hard one to diagnose.  I guess you could say it's personal.

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Well, Sadie has proved once again that she is one lucky dog. Or is it unlucky? The reason I say that is that she seems to have been a bit accident prone over the years, but also comes out none the worse for wear each time.  Last week she tangled with a car and came out of it with a couple of scrapes.  She was out front with Big Bear while he finished up some work in the yard, saw something (cat) across the street and darted into the street just as a car was going by. She hit the car rather than the car hitting her or it would have been a lot worse.  She has a skinned spot under her chin and one on her left leg and was undoubtedly a bit bruised and sore.  I took her into the vet and he checked her over, gave me some cream for the scrapes and an anti-inflammatory/pain reliever.  $91.50 later we went home and she stayed pretty quiet for the next two days. By the end of the second day she was back to her normal prancing step, jumping up to follow me with no problem at all.  Big Bear says she's not going out front with him any more unless I'm out there to watch her. 

She turned 11 years old this month and shows no signs of arthritis or any other health problems. She's as nimble and springy as ever and does not seem to show many signs of aging other then gray hair and a little less energy.  She has been a little quieter this past year, but that has been due to her missing our other dog and wanting to stay in the house with me.  She's been like my shadow since Cody died.  He was not quite 7 and became quite ill (vet thinks it might have been cancer). Even before that though he had been having problems with his joints and stiffness. Part of the difference probably lies with their size and breed. Cody was a 100 lb. yellow lab while Sadie is a 50 lb. mixed breed.  Her mother was a lab/rottweiler mix and I figure that dad must have been a border collie because she looks and acts a lot more like a border collie then either a lab or a rottweiler.  The only thing she seems to have gotten from mom is the big deep bark and the all black color.  She's a bit stubborn too, I was able to teach Cody not to go past the curb, but Sadie doesn't always want to adhere to that (obviously).  Cody's ball could go rolling into the street and he would stop at the curb and wait for one of us to go get it. :o)  Big Bear just loved it because he could wash the car, mow the lawn, etc. and Cody would just follow along dropping the ball at his feet.

It was a wild ride home tonight, but not the worst I've been in.  I went into Portland this afternoon to take my cousin into the Doctor (it turns out she has walking pneumonia).  I then took her to the grocery store and pharmacy before finally getting her back home and then stopped by my brothers.  It was 6:30pm and dark when I headed home and the storm was hitting a little earlier then predicted.  It was already getting pretty windy and pouring rain, but my route wasn't too bad because at least all the lights were still working.  I could hear on the radio that several roads around the Portland area had lights out and trees falling.  They predict 60 mph winds through the night and the coast was already having 100 mph winds with 30 foot waves.  It's supposed to let up by morning. 

Having lived here all of my life I can say that it's pretty much normal to have this happen a couple of times each fall or winter.  Every few years we have one that's a doozy and causes a lot of damage.  November set a new record for rainfall.  The previous record was set back in 1942.  Needless to say the rivers are high and there's been some flooding.  Tillamook (along the coast) always seems to get the worst of it.  It's a low lying area and has a lot of dairies and they had quite a bit of flooding and lost some cows.

Oregon's terrain and winter weather is definitely demanding respect right now.  There are 3 experienced climbers missing on Mt. Hood and this latest storm is continuing to hamper rescue efforts.  A California family got lost on a forest road (wrong turn) while traveling through Oregon and got caught in a snow storm.  They had been missing for about 10 days before they were found and the father had tried to walk for help and died.  Two other families got stuck or lost while Christmas tree cutting and were found safe.  Last month a little boy went missing in the Crater Lake area just as the snows had started and I don't think they found him.  We don't like to hear it or think about it, but it happens every year just as the drowning's do in our lakes and rivers.

Thanksgiving weekend brought that home to our family and friends.  Our nephew bought his first house this summer and wanted to host the family get together.  His mom & dad and the rest of us brought the food and we had a good time.  He proudly showed off his home and his new fishing boat.  On Saturday my brother-in-law, nephew and two of their friends went fishing on the Willamette.  The boat capsized and they hung on to the little bit of hull showing above water.  The water was only 47 degrees and the river was running high, fast and full of debris.  My brother-in-laws best friend let go of the boat in an attempt to swim for shore and did not make it.  They still have not found his body.  The other three were rescued after about 30 minutes and my nephews core body temperature was 93 degrees.  They were all sent to the hospital and warmed up and checked out.  The friend that was lost was a great guy and very well liked.  He will be missed.

Last summer Big Bear and K built us a new shed in the back yard and used the horizontal hardiplank siding that we're thinking of using on the house.  The house was built in 1971 and has the vertical t-111 that was so popular in the seventies.  It's in desperate need of paint and the old aluminum windows need to be replaced as well. We can't afford to do the windows or replace the siding right now so we may have to just go ahead and paint it.  What I'd like to do is make the windows bigger and put the horizontal siding on.  It would give the house a whole new look.

In the meantime I've decided on the colors I want.  We hadn't painted the shed yet so I've used that as a way to try out my colors to make sure I really like them.  I picked a medium grayish blue for the siding, white for the trim and burgundy for the doors.   With the shed getting full sun most of the day and me not being a morning person I wasn't getting very much done on it, but it's nearly done now.  I have a little trimming to finish on the blue and some touch up on the white and now that the cooler weather has arrived it will be a race against the rain.

The house has a lot of brick across the front and it needs some repair, but I do want to keep it.  I've always liked it and it's very unique.  One of the bricks is light gray in color and the other is pink with burgundy flecks.  I'm hoping it will look good against the darker blue.  The current color is a lighter blue with no trim color and pink for the doors.  Very much in need of repair and updating, but I'm sticking with my bent for color and in particular blue.  I don't like the baby poop browns they're using on all the new housing and don't want my house to look like everybody else's anyway.

Big Bear sanded the front door for me and I put 2 coats of the burgundy on it with 2 more to go.  It's darker than I originally wanted, but I think it'll work.

The rain arrived while I was painting the front door, but it's under a corner overhang so that was no problem.  It was a problem for a poor honeybee though.  I went back to my painting and he eventually dried off enough to take off.

My how things change.  A few months back I knew virtually nothing about blogging and now I'm hooked.  Oh sure, I had heard of it and knew it was a web log or journal or diary written by anyone who wanted to do one and read by anyone who wanted to take the time to do so.  I just couldn't figure out why the average person would want to do that. 

I figured it was more for people who wanted to voice their opinion on issues of the day, or politics, or for writers or businesses, etc.  I found it kind of odd that people would write about their day to day lives and even odder that someone who didn't know that person would want to read it.  What I didn't realize was how interactive it can be and how much I would enjoy "getting to know" people through their written words. 

There are so many different types of blogs and the serious and informative ones are certainly important and have their place, but the ones that I have come to enjoy the most are the ones written by everyday people who have a gift for telling stories of everyday life in such a way as to make you laugh, or nod in agreement or feel emotion of some kind because it's stuff you can relate to.  I've never been much of a writer, but I have thoroughly enjoyed setting up my page and learning lots of new stuff in the process and meeting lots of great people.  The bonus is it's making me write.  Because how can you have a blog and not write?

This is Portland from the Willamette River.  The river divides Portland east and west and runs north and south.  It is the only river in the USA to begin and end in one state.  It starts in the Cascade mountains and ends at the Columbia which then flows to the Pacific Ocean.  Of the navigable rivers that run north and south it is the second largest in the world, the largest being the Nile in Egypt.