SANTA MOSAIC - RERUNS

I AM GOING TO RE-POST SOME OF MY SANTA COLLECTION POSTS FROM LAST YEAR. 

MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO GET A BETTER LOOK AT THEM. YOU CAN SEE MANY MORE UNDER THE SANTA CATEGORY IN MY LIST OR BY THE SEARCH BAR.

Some of you have been following my Santa a Day posts for 2 weeks now. Here is a glimpse of all of the ones posted already. I assure you there are many more to come. I am all about the Santas at my house for Christmas. I have loved your comments especially the ones referring to a couple as Grizzly Adams and Gabby Hayes.

ME EITHER AND NOTES TO SELF

I am reposting this group for those who may have missed them over time.  I am a bit of a train wreck. You can normally find them at the top of the page under "I Say Hmmmm".

TO ALL OF YOU SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Image from The Graphics Fairy...I added the frame and the text.

Although in Canada our Thanksgiving Day has passed in October I am still thankful for all of my blogging buddies south of the border. 
I hope your families enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you too get the time to enjoy the day and not work too hard to make it all happen. 
I won't even begrudge you all that great shopping you will have the day after.....much.

HOUSE HIPPOS - GOTTA GET ME ONE

This is such a great ad. It is from the Concerned Childrens Advertisers. Let me know what you think.

POMEGRANATE PRESSURE

Image by JOE MARINARO via Flickr

Pomegranates have been everywhere for the last few years. From the juice to the pills to the all important Pom-tini. We have been gobbling it down with the knowledge that it is clearing our arteries and saving us from heart disease. 
Yes please, I will have another Pomtini, it is for my health. 
Well put that glass down (yes I know the alcohol isn't good for you, really I do) because it appears that the POM company has been fibbing a bit in their claims of super duper healthdom. 
There apparently is no scientific evidence that proves the claims of the wonder liquid according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The POM company disputes these findings from the FTC. 
Me??? Just pass me the limes and the tequila. I'll be fine.

PARKING LOT ETIQUETTE

Have you heard about the website that has a downloadable "ticket" to put on the windshields of people who take up two parking spots or park so close to your doors that you can't get in your vehicle. There are other infractions too. 
They will also post pictures of the offending vehicles if you send them. 
The site is http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/ (don't give me grief over the name) and they get lots of visitors and lots of hate mail. 
I can relate to this as I have gone back to my car in a parking lot to go to work and could barely get in my car. I got dirt all over my white shirt trying to slide in. I was furious...and dirty. 
 Many years ago when we were in our early 20s,  before the common use of car alarms, we went downtown for dinner with two other couples. We were in two cars. They were old beat up cars. 
Low and behold there was a fancy, schmantzy car parked across two spots which left one of us without a spot to park. 
The 3 guys got out and literally picked up the car and bounced it over into a single spot and then we parked the grungiest of the two cars next to it and went into the upscale restaurant for dinner. 
It must have been quite the shock for the jerk who took up two spots because he is more important than the rest of us, to come back to his car and see it has been moved. 
Oh the good old days.

I STILL GOT IT

I worked the front counter at work yesterday. I like to see the people face to face rather than just on the phones sometimes. 
We close at 6:00 pm. About 20 minutes before closing an older gentleman, maybe in his mid 60s came in to pay his bill. We chatted a bit and he asked what I was doing tonight. 

I said that I had invited everyone from work to come over for pizza and drinks. 
He asked where he should show up. 
Oh no says I. It is just a bunch of women who are going to yak about work all evening. 
Him: you said everyone from work, well I'm here. Plus you have men at work too. 
Me: oh none of the men can make it this time it is just the women. 
Him: my wife died 6 months ago. I think that is plenty of time to mourn. How about some other time. 
Me: I am married sir. Yes I know I don't have any wedding rings on. See (showing my earlobes and my wrists) I don't wear any jewelry.
 More idle chatter about grown kids and such and then he asks if I have any single friends to set him up with. 
For a brief moment I was scanning my brain for your names ladies. He seems really sweet and he obviously has great taste in women.
 (NOTE TO SELF: GET THOSE DARN WEDDING RINGS RESIZED)

SPUR OF THE MOMENT

At the last minute at work on Wednesday I suddenly had a great idea. I have invited everyone...well everyone who was still there at closing, to come by my house tonight and we will order pizza and have a gab fest. 
I contacted some that are on my Facebook page too. The rest I will have to nab at work today. 
That also meant I had to clean my messy house. More so the messy dog. It is so sad that our black lab who is almost 14 years old is peeing herself all the time. She will not be around much longer. She can barely get up the couple stairs needed to get outside when we let her out. 
It isn't that she doesn't know to go outside any more it is just that with all the lumps and bumps growing on her one of them seems to be pushing on her bladder. The result is that she is always soaking wet with pee. It smells really bad. 
We give her baths all the time but she is pretty heavy and we can't really lift her in and out of the tub so she has taken some pretty bad tumbles getting out. She doesn't mind the water but it breaks our hearts to have to put her through this every day or so. 
Secondly my house stinks of dog pee. Ugh. She has been relegated to the downstairs which is fine because she can't get up them hardly anyways. So what to do about the smell with guests coming? 
Well the door down there will be shut. Don't worry she has a soft bed to sleep on...which she ignores to go and find a piece of concrete floor instead. 
I will be leaving for work shortly and coming home with guests so I am going to run the crock pot all day with cinnamon, cloves and allspice berries, orange peels too. 
I just hope when we come in the front door the aroma of the simmering spices will be the only thing we smell. Fingers crossed. 
Hooray it is Friday. 

WHO SAID THAT?

Want to see more? Check out the "I Say Hmmmm" page at the top of the blog to see the ones you have missed.

WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH

OUT OF THE CLOSET

I just heard about the museum in San Antonio, Texas that took down a wall and found a bunch of historical items in the closed closet. 
There were roughly 200 items in there. 

 Not the actual photos.

There was a bible printed in the 1600s. 
There are various items relating to the civil war era including a letter written by Joseph Wood to his sister in 1861 about the Confederate troops taking over San Antonio. 

U. S. Grant

 Not the actual photo

Also in the closet were World War II posters, including some from Canada and the Philippines, and a rare group of Japanese posters, a Union officer's photo album with family papers and images of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Photos of the Alamo, local missions and street scenes of San Antonio from the 1920s also were found.
They don't know why the closet was closed off but they are going through the library meeting minutes to see if they can find out whose brilliant idea it was to hide this stuff away.  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/debcll/4102584182/

Not my closet. No really it isn't.

One day someone will have to sort through all my special stuff in my closets...and drawers...and shelves...and counters. I wonder if they will view it with the awe and delight that I am sure the workers in San Antonio did when they found their treasure.

This post will also be on my other blog.

COMMENT REPLIES - UPDATED

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gedal/689828843/

I was going to put a comment poll on my site but after the recent scare around here with gadgets I am pretty gun shy. 

I, like any other blogger love comments. It is like chatting with my coffee group that most of you have heard of (except they are way more rude than you guys)

I almost always reply to every comment I get by emailing back. I know that some people reply to each comment in the comment section of the blog. 

My theory is that you won't necessarily come back to the comments to see my reply so I should email you. 


What do you think? Do you reply in the comments? More importantly do you ever go back to see if someone has written a reply there? Do you prefer an email response? Do you expect any response? 

Someone just mentioned to me that they are getting a lot of spam and filthy comments so they word verify and moderate. 
Did you know you can go to your dashboard and click on "comments" and from there you check the little box to the left of the offending comment and then click on "spam". They will be blocked. If you block someone by mistake you can go to the next tab "spam" and unblock them.  

HOW IMPORTANT IS MY BLOG?

What would go through your mind if you got an email saying your blog was being classified as a dangerous site for your readers? 

Disbelief. Anger. Fear. Helplessness. Sadness. All of the above. 

One of our fellow bloggers has had her site shut down because of a virus that is in her calendar gadget. I know that is where it is because my virus protection told me where it was. I left her a note with all the info that I had on what had the virus. 

Image via Wikipedia

The next thing I knew I got an email from a reader who advised me she got a warning about my blog when she tried to enter. I put out the question to my readers and only a few were getting that message. 

With a bit of research I found out that it was Google Chrome that was blocking my site. Hmmm. I downloaded Chrome and tried to access my site and I got the same message. Danger, danger. 
But it also told me what was on my site that was a problem. It was my link to this first site with the virus. 


I figured if I removed all traces of her site from mine then I should be okay. I stopped following her blog and I took her name off of my blog roll list on my sidebar. IT WORKED. Well for me any way but poor Ann-Marie With a Dash is probably beside herself trying to get this fixed as she has had her site shut down by Google and I don't know how long it takes to get that fixed or if she even knows what to do to fix it. 

This is so unfair for her. I love her site. She is smart and funny and a pleasure to read. If anyone out there knows her email address maybe you could let me know. If you happen to see her up and running again I would like to know that too so I can get right back on her follower list.

We put so much into building our sites. We cultivate friendships and we spend countless hours visiting others to help them build their sites too. 

We notice when someone is missing for a while. We give advice and we take advice. 

We send prayers when needed, we send our heartfelt thoughts. We listen when they lose someone. We celebrate when there is a new family member. 

Now we need to rally together to help each other. If you have this happen to a blog you follow then email the blogger if you can to let them know. Make sure you try to follow them again when they have fixed their problem. Think about how you would appreciate the help if your blog was shut down. 

So once again...anyone who knows Ann-Marie With a Dash's email address let me know and if you are a follower of hers you should check your blog through Google Chrome to see if yours is giving out the warning too. If so I recommend removing all connections to her blog, just until she can get it up and running again, and passing this along to anyone else that you know follows her. Through the grapevine we can clean this up and then get her numbers back up again..

I do want to mention that last year there was a virus of sorts in one of the falling snow gadgets too. We all like to tart up our blogs with fun things but we need to be really careful of what we are putting on our sites. A little blog bling can actually destroy us. Lets be careful out there. 

I FIXED IT- I HOPE

I FIXED THE PROBLEM ...I HOPE

THE SITE I HAD VISITED HAD A CALENDAR GADGET THAT CONTAINED A VIRUS. 

MY VIRUS PROTECTION, WHICH IS AWESOME, BLOCKED THE VIRUS FOR ME. 

I LEFT A NOTE FOR THE BLOGGER TO TELL HER. GOOGLE HAS SHUT HER DOWN FOR NOW. YIKES. 

MY SITE WAS BLOCKED IN GOOGLE CHROME BECAUSE SHE WAS IN MY LIST OF BLOGS I FOLLOW AND WAS IN MY LIST THAT WAS ON MY SIDEBAR. 

I REMOVED HER FROM BOTH OF THEM AND NOW CHROME NO LONGER GIVES ME THE KISS OF DEATH MESSAGE. 

HOW AWFUL FOR HER TO BE IN THIS POSITION. WE HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL WITH WHAT WE PUT ON OUR BLOGS. WITH CHRISTMAS COMING WE WILL BE LOOKING AT THOSE COUNTDOWN WIDGETS AND THE FALLING SNOW WIDGETS. 

STOP AND THINK IF A LITTLE BLING ON THE PAGE IS GOING TO BE WORTH IT. 

THANKS FOR YOUR EMAILS. I HOPE THIS IS FIXED FOR ME BUT IF NOT PLEASE LET ME KNOW. 

AS FOR THE OTHER BLOGGER I AM SO SAD THAT SHE WILL BE LOSING ALL THESE FOLLOWERS THAT SHE WORKED SO HARD TO GET. 

BASTARDS!

UH OH TROUBLE

IS ANYBODY ELSE GETTING A WARNING WHEN YOU TRY TO ACCESS MY BLOG? IF SO PLEASE EMAIL ME AND LET ME KNOW. 

ME EITHER - SNORT

To see more notes showing my pathetic interesting life click here.