Technology...should be a four-letter word...

The Yarnspinners

Hi all.
It's Thursday...for another 46 minutes. It's not Wednesday. Wednesday is my blogging day. I've missed several Wednesdays in a row...sometimes because I've been uber-busy(making changes in one of the two manuscripts I'm working on has created the cutest little jigsaw puzzle!)(I'm also working on restoring a Christening pillow in Polish needle lace made by a 17 year old girl in Poland in 1912)...sometimes because I couldn't think of anything to say.

Okay, I'll admit that some of those are excuses...I'm not a lover of blogging. I have a hard time getting past the thought that there's anything I could possibly have to say that people would want to read. Kind of an interesting attitude for a writer, wouldn't you say? LOL

However, this is the second week that technology has been the culprit. I don't even pretend not to be the most computer stupid human on the face of the earth. I am. I'm professionally computer stupid. So when my darling husband said we just had to have this new thing called a router so someone else could be online at the same time as I--like I'd ever try to hog the Internet--fritzed on me at 8:00 AM Wednesday morning, I suddenly wanted to do nothing more than to blog.

I had so much to say. Things I was sure had the potential to change the world...I've completely finished all my Christmas shopping...My son plays in his first concert next Tuesday night after a mere 12 weeks of instruction...My daughter has a 4.4 GPA...Our Thanksgiving was perfect...Earth shattering things. Or maybe just this great new recipe I found for tequilla chicken with cashews.

Now, granted, with this object, everyone in the house really can be online at the same time if they want. However, when I got the error box saying Aol couldn't make the connection and my server said it was that router, the walls started closing in on me. I couldn't be still. My editing skills hid under the bed and refused to come out. I called my mother and two of my sisters just to talk. I gave the dog a bath. I cleaned out the fridge. I washed, dried and ironed curtains. The only thing the lack of Internet didn't force me to do...strip and rewax the floors. I hate doing that. I had a technological panic attack. Technology did this to me and it was then I decided it should be a 4-letter word. I don't think I'll ever change my mind.

Of course, should someone invent a self-stripping/self-waxing floor, I'm there baby!

Hugs and a glitch-free week to you!
Sher

My Home

I was standing on a lookout on the Blue Ride Parkway, looking down to where my home is located. So, where I'm standing is practically my backyard.

I love my home and the gorgeous scenic view surrounding it. This isn't to say that I would love to have some changes of my house, but it's so expensive.

In the picture, the leaves are just starting to turn and now they're almost all gone. I wish I could've gone back up when they were in their full colorful beauty, but it turned cold and I was almost in hibernation.

Now, if I go back up to this spot with the leaves gone, I can actually see my backyard--not really the house, but our outside storage shed and dh's carving area.

Have a nice day. I was happy to share this photo.

Kim

Shadow Boxing by Maureen McMahon

Let us look at the shadow. It’s darkness. It’s the absence of light. It’s the space left where sunlight should be and therefore cold. There’s no substance to the shadow. It exists only because something of substance is too dense to allow light filtration. If I were to become "overshadowed" by you, does this mean that I am less tangible? Are you more valid than I? If I was to "walk in your shadow", would I walk in cold and darkness, in a void left by your passing? And would you bask in the light and warmth aware but uninterested in my vacuous mimicry? And God forbid, if I were to become a "shadow of my former self", would I merely be that cold, dark space left where once I was? If I was already overshadowed by you, or walking in your shadow, how could I become a shadow of my former self? Is it possible, I ask you, to become less than nothing?

The night, my friend, is one large shadow. The earth shutting it's eye to the sun. The moon, in turn, basking in it's rightful glory. In shadow, creatures sleep. There’s life in light, sleep in darkness -- death in darkness. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...". Is death, then, merely loss of substance? If death is shadow, what casts it? What wondrous entity holds dominance over animation? And what monumental lustre allows the shadow of death to be cast? Is this what is meant by God? There’s always a light at the end of a tunnel, people who have come back say, a blinding, comforting light. Perhaps, then, death is like the night, a time of repose, for rest and sleep, but temporary, waiting only for the bulk of mortality to move aside and allow the blinding warmth of paradise to shine through.

So you see we must not be afraid of the shadows. They are merely spaces for rest and if I "walk in your shadow" or you "overshadow" me or I "become a shadow of my former self", I will pause with relief and lie down to wait for the cycle to complete and the light to return.

Halloween

Seems there's some reason why I can post every other week. Someone's ill, someone needs me, someone at the cable company is messing with my internet fiberoptics. We're on a first name basis and they think I have an attitude problem. I think they need to work on my fiberoptics when I'm sleeping, not when I'm working Seems reasonable to me.

This week we have Halloween.

Now, I have five younger brothers and sisters. My sisters live close and we each have 2 or more children a piece. For the last twenty-something years, my youngest sister has thrown the blow-out Halloween party to end all blow-out parties, with each year's affair outdoing the last.

Last night's to-do was no exception. The nutcase has baked for days...one of her passions. I'm considering starting a telethon...stopped only because her goodies are always to die for. Has anyone ever had orange brownies? We're talking a week with Johnny Depp good! Then she feeds us...every year something different--homemade soups, chilli, sandwiches, etc. This year...pasta, with several different sauces, salad and garlic bread.

Now, she never lets anyone bring anything, and the guest list includes many others than simply family. Her house resembles the Camden household from Seventh Heaven. People were filing thru her house last night just to eat! And they all called her Mama.

A wonderful time was had by all.

So, you'd think I'd have been all set to start Nano this morning...Nano, for those who don't know, basically requires you to write like an insane person with spasmodic fingers in order to pound out a 50K novel in 30 days.

So what did I manage to pound out today? Counting this blog? 657 words. (I didn't count my son's excuse or the grocery list.) So for the first time, I'd like to thank the person who came up with the blog idea. Without you, my word count would for today...well, there wouldn't be a word count.

Till next week...or week after next...
Be safe and look out the window!
Sher