It's Sunday and I'm stalling

Hello again. It's Sunday, and I have a boatload of work to do (work work, not my own work), and I don't want to do it, and so I'm doing all sorts of other stuff that is not really relevant to anything. Like this, for instance. I may get around to it before the day is over. I need to. We'll see.

Today I am appalled at the continued state of my body. I'm seriously fat, you know. Yesterday, my brother Jim brought his daughter Cynthia up to spend a few days with Dierdre during spring break, and he brought the Christmas gifts that they've been forgetting to bring/mail for the last few months. Not that I have any room to mention that, since his gift for Christmas 2004 is still in a box somewhere, never unpacked when we moved here right before Christmas that year.

Anyway...

One of the things he brought was from my dad, which was rather a surprise since he has been gone now for several years. He had been in the process of putting together a photo album for each of us kids, and this one, mine, was in California with some other stuff that my aunt Rinell sent to Jim. In it is a photo from what appears to be the mid-'70's where I am standing next to my great-grandfather.

Oh! I can upload photos here! Well, then, here it is. You can see not only the most amazing pair of pants you have ever seen, but also that I am long, and skinny. Well, reasonably so.

See what I mean?

I've been so round for so long that this image just stunned me. Not too much makes me speechless, as you well know. But this did it.

I have to do something about this.

Here's another photo from Dad's album.

Time to get serious, folks.

I've been bad / Update

Wow. I really dropped the ball on this thing, didn't I?

Sorry about that! I'll try to do better.

How have you been?

My brother Rick, who had been living with us for the last three (?!) years, died on January 29. It was quite a shock despite being completely predictable. Rick was only 37 years old. At least, he died peacefully in his sleep. No doubt it was the first time he ever went anywhere peacefully.

At this point, I have decided that I am just emotionally "wrong" somehow. I have had utterly no feelings about this whole thing. Well, maybe not "utterly" -- but pretty close. I think something is wrong with the lot of us. This detachment is just not "normal" (whatever normal is).

Angela

Tough Nuts

It has *not* been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.

Or anywhere else in my world.

• Two of our daughters were accelerated, one into 7th grade (she is 10), and one into 9th (she is 12.)
• Then my husband was layed off from his job, and moved back in with us.
• My daughter's Big Sister decided not to be her Big Sister anymore.
• Our kitty had to have all his teeth removed, and some of his jaw, due to deterioration.
• And in the afternoon, I was diagnosed with diabetes.
• Did I mention that our washer is leaking, the dryer doesn't turn, the microwave died, and our car needs $1500 of work just to run?

What a couple of months it has been!

Looking forward to better days... and school starting.

--karen

Some cool things Karen found.

I posted a couple cool links to our home intranet to share. Thought you all might like to see them, too.

• Cool link for a good program that aired on our local PBS station: America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie.
• Visit National Geographic and build your own virtual tornado at "Forces of Nature", or visit Nova's "Hunt for the Supertwister" site. The show airs May 3rd, 2005 at 8:00 pm
  See Nova for more on "The Sinking City of Venice"

I try to give the kids something to feed their heads every day, whether it be a cartoon, a news article, or a link to something useful or interesting. If you would like to Feed Your Head, click on the link and feast away!

Karen's Words on Friendship

"It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confidence of their help." - Epicurus

If you want to read more about my opinions on friendship, you can look at my Web page about friends: http://www.ktcat.net/friendship.htm

Angela's Words to Live By for February 15, 2005

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.

-- Rita Mae Brown

Angela's Word to Live By

We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives.

-- Sheldon Kopp

Happy Valentine's Day! and random stuff from Angela

It's Monday, and I have the day off! Ha, ha! I was prepared to stay in my room all day, but Ray got himself suckered into driving Dierdre to Plano (50 miles) to stay overnight with some friend of hers before we moved.

(sigh)

Oh, well.

Today I'll go into town with Ray and Dierdre, and then the day's project is to do some paperwork I have for work. (Yes, I recognize the irony in being tickled to death to be home from work today, only to plan to do work at home anyway - but this is the only place I can get any work done! I certainly don't get much work done at work!)

Then, two home projects continue. Gotta go through some paperwork that is piling up around here and make labels for the file folders with my labelmaker, and, uh, something else. I knew what it was a few seconds ago.

Sheesh!

Hey, did you see the movie, "Ray" with Jamie Fox? I thought it was pretty good. Ray Charles' determination in the face of his disability awes me. Anyone's determination in the face of disability and discrimination awes me. Dogged perseverance definitely has its place in any story of success, whether that success is on a grand scale such that movies get made or whether it is a small, personal success like our purchase of our little ten acres of Texas mud.

Okay, just babbling now. Later!

Angela

Angela had something to say just ONE minute ago...

...but I forgot what it was. :-)

Karen says: Youth

So here's the deal: My oldest two girls (14 and 12) and I were in the elevator coming downstairs from a doctor's appointment. The only other person in the elevator was a guy probably about my age. He asked, "So... are you all three sisters?" I feel so *young*! :-)